We know that London is in the grip of an ongoing housing crisis and Newham’s residents are at the sharp edge, that’s why I welcome this incisive report published by the Centre for London and their welcomed recommendations.

In our borough, too many of our residents are suffering in the face of a catastrophic housing crisis due to unaffordable homes, high rents and insecurity facing renters.

We have 37,000 people on our housing list, 7000 households in temporary accommodation and over half of our residents now live in the private rented sector making them especially vulnerable in the face of the cost of living crisis.

A limited choice of homes across London means that all too often households on lower incomes are forced to rent homes that are cramped, unsafe or prohibitively expensive to heat. Despite the fact that private renters tend to have higher monthly housing costs than social renters and owner-occupiers, the sector has the worst property conditions with an estimated 23 percent of privately rented homes being non-decent nationally.

Because of the limited supply of genuinely affordable social housing in Newham as elsewhere, I am committed to using all the tools available to us as a Council to protect our residents from unsafe housing conditions, and from exploitation by unscrupulous rogue landlords. That includes licensing schemes for private rented sector properties, which we introduced as the first local authority to do so back in 2013. We inspect hundreds of properties per month and take enforcement actions to stop rogue landlords operating in our borough as part of our wider agenda to protect renters’ rights.

While the Government has published its Renters’ Reform Bill, with plans to end Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions and increase regulation of the sector; we need to go further as outlined in this welcomed Centre for London report.

Rokhsana Fiaz OBE, Mayor of Newham

Too many Londoners live in unsafe and unhealthy privately rented homes. While most landlords offer a good service to their tenants, nearly a fifth of privately rented sector homes in London fail to meet the Decent Homes standard and, after years of budget cuts, London boroughs struggle to enforce minimum standards.

The Mayor believes that selective licensing is one of the most valuable tools councils have to address poor standards and conditions in London’s private rented sector homes, and for landlords to demonstrate that their property is suitable for living in and managed to an acceptable standard. He understands, however, that applying for, and implementing, schemes is currently lengthy, expensive and legally risky for councils. Committing to introducing, or expanding, selective licensing schemes becomes a gamble.

That is why I am so pleased to support this important new Centre for London research, which shows that there is a better way of doing it – reinstating London councils’ ability to make their own decisions about licensing schemes for their local area, with a role for the Mayor in ensuring greater consistency, creating a more transparent system for landlords and better protections for private renters.

This research helps us to make the case for this. It has already been announced for councils in the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, London must come next.

This work could not be more timely. The recent publication of the Renters (Reform) Bill, after a four year wait, heralds the abolition of Section 21, ‘no fault’ evictions. This will give renters greater confidence to ask their landlords to make essential repairs to their home and complain to councils when they don’t. It also sees the introduction of a Property Portal, also known as a landlord register. This report makes serious and sensible recommendations for the development of a Portal which will help renters to make informed choices about who they rent from and enable borough PRS enforcement teams to concentrate their scarce resources on the worst landlords. Crucially, it recognises that the information sharing portal will need to work in tandem with selective licensing schemes and the inspection and enforcement work they support, rather than replace them.

Brought together, this represents a real opportunity to significantly improve private renting in London.

Tom Copley, Deputy Mayor for Housing and Residential Development