More change at the top for housing policy with 8th new housing minister in as many years

We’ve seen yet another change in Housing Minister. Following David Davis’s resignation from the role of Brexit Secretary the Housing Minister Dominic Raab has taken up the challenge of leading the UK through the Brexit negotiations. The new minister in charge of housing is Kit Malthouse who was formerly Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Support, Housing and Child Maintenance at the Department for Work and Pensions and has been an MP for just three years.

This news comes just two months after a previous cabinet reshuffle that saw the former Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government being promoted to Home Secretary after just 111 days since the role was created earlier this year. This made James Brokenshire the cabinet minister ultimately responsible for our sector.

But, it seems the pressure regarding one particularly controversial housing policy moved with the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid. Just days after as he took up his new role, the Residential Landlords Association joined calls for him to review the effectiveness and fairness of the Right to Rent legislation, which was rolled out in England in 2016.

The move seems to be gathering pace. In June the High Court approved a judicial review of the legislation. The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants’ argument is that Right to Rent checks lead to discrimination and has launched a crowdfund appeal to raise £15,000 to help fund the legal challenge, throwing doubt that this legislation will ever be rolled out in Wales.

We agree that the UK should be able to tackle illegal immigration, however we have always believed that the Private Rented Sector shouldn’t be relied upon to act as border control. We therefore await the judicial review with interest.

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