Recommendation 21

The current high cost of private renting is rooted in the decades-long failure of successive Governments to build enough homes. We accept that the purpose of the White Paper was not to make the PRS more affordable, and that the Government is investing in house building, but there are questions about the sector’s ability to deliver the necessary number of new homes, particularly given the enormous financial pressures on housing associations and local housing authorities. Ultimately, the affordability crisis in the PRS, the source of many of the other problems in the 62 Reforming the Private Rented Sector sector, can only be properly solved by a significant increase in house building, particularly affordable housing. We call on the Government to recommit to delivering the affordable homes the country needs, particularly the 90,000 social rent homes we have previously concluded are needed every year.