Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department is taking steps to reduce the cost of renting for (a) private and (b) social tenants.

Reforming the private rented sector remains a top priority for this Government, and we will bring forward legislation as soon as we can within this Parliament.  Our White Paper, 'A Fairer Private Rented Sector', published in June 2022, sets out our plans to end arbitrary rent review clauses, only allow one rent increase per year, improve tenants' ability to challenge excessive rent increases through the First-Tier Tribunal, and enable tenants to be repaid rent for non-decent homes.

At Autumn Statement 2022, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that the social housing rent cap would be set at 7% for 2023-24. The cap was set at 7% as it strikes an appropriate balance between protecting social tenants from high rent increases and ensuring that Registered Providers of social housing are able to continue to invest in new and existing social housing and provide decent homes and services to tenants.