Hi ,

Who should have more power over housing policy in the UK – landlords or their tenants? It's an evergreen question, but a push for rent controls in Scotland is putting focus on how much political power in the UK is held by landlords.

In 2022, with rents rocketing, Scotland's government set a 3% cap on rent rises as an emergency measure. This protected existing tenants from the 30% or 50% rent hikes that were seen in cities across the UK, but rents in Scotland for new tenancies continued to rise fast. This cap expired at the beginning of April 2024, and landlords promptly began hiking rents by huge amounts, putting many at the risk of homelessness. Although tenants can still challenge rent increases at a tribunal, something tenants outside Scotland can't do, the gap in protections is being felt.

This is the context in which the Scottish government have proposed a new housing bill that would give renters more rights over the homes they rent and introduce long-term rent controls – this time preventing hikes between tenancies.

This would be a marked break from the UK's worst-in-class protections for renters, and lobbyists are fighting hard to keep the status quo going. The influential hard-right think tank the IEA (and their unnamed donors) and Telegraph interviews with landlords about how tenant protections make them feel "no longer welcome" are joining new landlord lobby groups to pressure the Scottish government to back down.

Their evidence is shaky at best. Rent controls can't solve the housing crisis alone, which is why advocates for rent controls are also calling for a massive expansion in social housing, but they're a big step forward in protecting tenants and reducing the power of private landlords. However, lobbyists may get a more sympathetic ear than they deserve. One fifth of MSPs are themselves landlords, and over 1 in 4 Scottish MPs at Westminster declare an income of over £10,000 from renting out property, much more than the overall UK figure. Recent stories in the press about renters living at properties owned by government MPs suffering mould, infestations, and missing licences indicate the depth of the unequal relationship.

The good news is Scotland's renters are fighting back. A coalition of trade unions and the organisation Living Rent have been demanding action on unaffordable rents, pointing out that rent controls and renter protections are wildly popular with the Scottish public despite the lobbying campaign. Activists are organising within the SNP to pressure their representatives to stand with renters instead of landlords.

This fight exposes one of the UK's deepest inequalities: the wealth of property owners, perpetuated by their unequal access to power. Can the combined weight of Scotland's trade unions, activists, and public opinion overturn it?

What other measures to make work fairer would you like to see the government implement? You said:

• "Domestic workers need to be regulated as in France - joining local co-ops and getting annual leave and insurance as well as paying taxes."
  
  
• "Equal pay for equal work/skills for women - we're still not there yet - after all those years since Dagenham!"
  
  
• "Bring in maximum earnings and also reduce the ratio between lowest to highest salaries in organisations. Introduce universal basic services so quality of life is not so dependent on income."
  
  
• "Since the 80s we have seen a diminishing and vilification of unions. Unions are not the solution to everything but for workers a body designed solely to help and protect them and collectively bargain would help considerably. Unions used to have a strong social contract with workers and I feel that has been diminished and diminished until they are left toothless."
  
  
• "Reduction in pay differentials so that the highest paid full time equivalent worker is paid a maximum of three times the lowest paid full time equivalent worker. The most senior management should also be elected by the workers not appointed by owners and shareholders."