New Housing Secretary Steve Reed has a track record of lambasting landlords as a quick trawl through Hansard parliamentary records reveals.
Reed will doubtless be an enthusiastic facilitator of the Renters’ Rights Bill as he has always backed extending tenants’ rights and landlord regulation and has also consistently voted in favour of landlords paying higher stamp duty fees.
In a debate about working people’s finances during the previous government, Angela Rayner’s replacement asked: “How can it be right that a landlord who rents out a portfolio of properties does not pay a single penny more while their working tenants get clobbered with tax rises?”
He urged the Tory government to get everyone to bear their fair share of the tax burden, rather than “letting people who own assets, such as bankers and landlords, off the hook, absolutely scot-free”.
Reed has also pointed out in the Commons how some of his constituents in Streatham and Croydon North are “completely exasperated by landlords who refuse to do even the most basic repairs on properties that people are living in with their children”.
The MP was previously environment secretary and has experience of local government, having been leader of Lambeth Council in South London before entering parliament during the most recent General Election.
Reed told The Telegraph that he planned to “build baby build” as he seeks to deliver Labour’s pledge to build 1.5 million homes during this parliament. Reed has pledged to pull every lever in meetings with civil servants, developers and house builders this week to “move on to the next stage in unleashing one of the biggest eras of building in our country’s history”.
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