Ed Miliband proposes to ease the housing crisis by imposing rent controls. In pointing to an average rise in rents of 13 per cent since 2010, equivalent to £1,020 a year, he addresses a real problem. Under Labour’s plans, landlords would be prevented from increasing rent more than once a year and then would be subject to an upper limit on rent rises, based on average market rates. The policy is well intentioned and I have a shrewd idea of the effect it will have. It will worsen the problem of unaffordable housing.
Rent controls aren’t just a bad idea in theory. I have friends, a young married couple, in Malmö in Sweden. She is a nurse; he is an Israeli immigrant studying hard to