Finally, we are going to see a fairer deal for the 11 million people across Britain living in rented accommodation. After 14 years of Tory rule, during which time renters have been denied a basic right of security while facing soaring bills and sinking conditions, the Renters’ Rights Bill will begin to fix the rental rot.
It will transform the daily lives of millions – including the 3.6 million children living in poor housing, according to Shelter.
As homelessness minister Rushanara Ali said in a debate last October, the Government is committed “to abolishing section 21 no-fault evictions, preventing private renters from being exploited and discriminated against, and empowering people to challenge unreasonable increases”.
Which is why it is utterly devastating that what is one of the greatest (yet mysteriously under discussed) achievements of this government has now been tarnished by revelations about… Rushanara Ali.
Vicky Spratt’s brilliant exclusive report for The i Paper revealed how Ali threw out four tenants from her east London town house, before re-letting it at around £4,000 a month – a whacking £700 a month increase.
square VICKY SPRATT The way we rent is about to change dramatically
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Ali claims she was legitimately trying to sell the house at the end of last year, but when she couldn’t find a buyer she returned to renting it. The former tenants, who had been given four months’ notice to leave, noticed the house back up for rent just weeks after they had moved out.
The property was managed on Ali’s behalf by two lettings agencies. A spokesperson for Ali said: “Rushanara takes her responsibilities seriously and complied with all relevant legal requirements.” They also say she offered the previous tenants a rolling contract when their tenancy came to an end while she was attempting to sell it.
Many people are rightly raging at the revelation. Community union Acorn and the London Renters Union have said they have lost all faith in the minister and she must stand down.
I just feel desperately disappointed that once again we have all been terribly let down. It’s a feeling of dizzying familiarity as another bit of the public’s trust in politics is chiselled away.
The irony of course is that Ali operated within the letter of the existing law. Which is why the law is in the process of being changed, meaning if renters have to leave a property for it to be sold, it can’t then be let again for another six months. But that won’t come into effect until early next year.
Regardless of the legalities of it, Ali has fallen woefully short on the morality of it. Why else was the Labour government seeking to change the rules if they did not deem such behaviour to be deeply immoral?
It may be she was legitimately trying to sell her house when she first asked the tenants to leave. Or it may be she left too much decision-making in the hands of an over zealous letting agent. But when you’re the minister for homelessness at a time of the greatest clampdown on dodgy landlords for a generation, she should never have allowed this to happen. For beyond the moral failure, there is a deep failure of political nous.
The British public dislikes nothing more in its politicians than apparent hypocrisy. Many ministers who enforce one rule for others and operate on a different one for themselves have learned this the hard way.
Trust in politicians stands at a record low, with 58 per cent saying they “almost never trust politicians of any party in Britain to tell the truth when they are in a tight corner”, according to the National Centre for Social Research. That figure, from June last year, was up a staggering 19 points from 2020.
There are a myriad of reasons for the breakdown of trust in politics and other institutions of public life; the police, media, banking and even education. All the more reason why politicians must work harder than everyone to not allow the merest chink of suspicion fall upon their public or private lives.
Ali hasn’t just allowed in a chink of suspicion – she has flung the door wide open to it.
It confirms the pervasive negativity which is our blighting public life and the lines we hear so often: “they’re all in it for themselves”, “it’s one rule for them”, and “they don’t know what it’s like in the real world”. It is manna from heaven for Nigel Farage as he draws his dividing line between his purportedly virtuous us and the corrupt political elite them.
The tragedy is most politicians aren’t corrupt or greedy or hypocritical – they are decent folk trying to make things a bit better for the rest of us the way they believe best. I’m sure Ali was one of those people who went into politics wanting to do good. But she has created a very different perception of herself. And in this world perception is reality.
Modern politics has little to do with facts and everything to do with feelings. And even if the fact of the matter is Ali acted within the law, the feeling is this was all wrong.
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