Shadow Housing Secretary Katie Lam has laid into the Ministry for Housing, Local Government, and Communities for “making life harder for people who are just trying to do the right thing”.

Lam blames the Renters’ Rights Act for rising rents and landlords offloading their properties and says Labour have totally failed to tackle problems in the planning system while tax hikes and red tape are resulting in fewer houses being built.

For people wanting to rent, to buy a new home, to make changes to their existing home, to build houses in the places that people want them, or to rent out property that they already own, the answer from this government has consistently been more regulations, more rules, and more restrictions, she explains.

Labels

Writing in Conservative Home, she labels the situation in which the law-abiding are punished, while rule-breakers get away with wrongdoing as ‘anarcho-tyranny’.

“Despite no longer having the will, or ability, to maintain control over rule breakers, the government compulsively creates new rules and new sanctions for the law-abiding, in order to maintain some semblance of authority,” says Lam. “Few other departments are as guilty of making life harder for people who are just trying to do the right thing, while turning a blind eye to the most flagrant misconduct elsewhere.”

Expensive

Some of the most expensive property in the country is being used as taxpayer-subsidised social housing, often for people who have come here from abroad, according to Lam, who says nearly half of London’s social housing goes to people born overseas.

“We all deserve to live in a country where people who work hard and do the right thing are rewarded. Those who work hard, and who want to, should be able to buy a new house, in the place that they want to live, without having to save up for several decades. They certainly shouldn’t have their hard-earned money spent on providing subsidised housing to foreign nationals, in some of the country’s most expensive properties.”

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