Money Box Live: Rent Controls
Money Box
BBC
4.2 • 825 Ratings
🗓️ 25 October 2017
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Rent controls are common across Europe - but do they work? And could they work in the UK? It's a popular idea with voters but detractors say it could destroy the private rental sector.
Nearly a third of private tenants had problems paying their rent, according to a recent report published by the Department for Communities and Local Government.
Amid rising concerns about the cost of renting, there are renewed calls for some sort of price cap to limit cost increases - a policy already in progress in Scotland.
For this edition of Money Box Live Adam Shaw examines how bad it's got for tenants and whether rent cap schemes in Germany and Sweden have helped or hindered the market for both landlord and tenant.
CONTRIBUTORS
Seb Klier, Generation Rent
Anna Clarke, Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research, University of Cambridge
David Smith, Residential Landlords Association
Reiner Wild, Berliner Mieterverein (tenants association)
Billy McCormac, Fastighetsägarna Stockholm (landlords association).
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In Northern Ireland, from the late 70s to the early 90s, the IRA killed over 40 alleged informers. |
| 0:08.0 | But the man who often found, tortured and sometimes killed these people on behalf of the IRA |
| 0:12.0 | was himself an informer, a secret British army agent with the codename Stakeknife. |
| 0:18.0 | Who gets to play God? And why me? Why my family? When lies are still being told to this day, |
| 0:24.0 | who do you believe? I wouldn't even know where to start and I'm with the IRA. |
| 0:28.5 | Steakknife. Listen first on BBC Sounds. This is the BBC. |
| 0:36.7 | Welcome to the download of Moneybox Live, the program about your money. Today's program |
| 0:40.9 | tackled rent controls and whether they worked for tenant and landlord. Well, just before we play |
| 0:46.0 | you the program, I've trapped our guests in the studio at Seb Clear from Generation Rent, |
| 0:51.1 | Anna Clark from the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research and David Smith from the Residential Landholds Association. Briefly, I'm hoping you're going to say yes, |
| 0:58.8 | but who knows? Do you think we answered some of the difficult questions or at least tackled them, |
| 1:03.6 | David? I think one of the problems, unfortunately, is that the questions that are so many and go |
| 1:08.7 | so far beyond just housing. I mean, one of the things that we |
| 1:10.9 | talk about is planning and it's insane in some areas. I live in an area where it's easier to build |
| 1:16.3 | a golf course and it is to build houses. How can that be right? Anna? Yeah, I'd agree that the |
| 1:21.8 | shortage of housing is so much the fundamental aspect and it's a shame because anything else you do |
| 1:26.4 | is going to not answer this fundamental problem. |
| 1:29.4 | There isn't enough housing for the people that want to live in it. |
| 1:31.9 | So there was quite a lot of heat in, I thought, our discussion was really, really lively. |
| 1:35.7 | Do you think there was some light as well? |
| 1:37.5 | Absolutely. I mean, I really enjoyed it. |
| 1:39.1 | I mean, one thing Generation Rent has been doing when they've been interjecting in these debates is saying at least let's |
... |
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