City Hall Conservatives challenge landlord stereotypes and blame Sadiq Khan for London’s housing crisis

It’s easier for London Mayor Sadiq Khan to paint a picture of greedy landlords than to solve London’s housing crisis, claims a member of the London Assembly.

In an exclusive video interview with Property118, deputy leader of the City Hall Conservatives and London Assembly Member, Emma Best, argues that Mr Khan promotes rent controls because they are politically popular, despite evidence from the London Assembly itself showing they don’t work.

Emma also explains the Conservatives are standing up for landlords and showing the reality for many landlords in London is very different from the media stereotype.

Watch the video interview below

Paint landlords as greedy men sitting on a large lump of cash

Emma tells Property118 that the media stereotype of landlords being rich is very different from reality, especially in London.

She explains: “The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, does this a lot, there’s this tendency to paint landlords as greedy men sitting on a large lump of cash, but that’s not the reality of landlords, especially in London.

“Landlords are just keeping afloat as well, and a lot have been reluctant landlords who may have taken on a property through the death of a loved one. There simply isn’t this image of landlords sitting on a big pile of cash, it’s not that easy.

“But for the mayor, that’s an easy image to paint. The idea of stopping evil, greedy landlords from taking all the money is a simple story for him to tell, and he’s decided it’s easier to keep telling that story than to fix the problem of getting rents down for Londoners.”

Rent controls don’t work

Emma adds that rent controls are being promoted as a solution to London’s housing crisis for the wrong reasons.

“It’s easy and populist, and from the sounds of it, what’s not to like about it?” she says.

“For the mayor, it’s an easy excuse to say, ‘I’d like to introduce rent controls and that’s going to fix everything.’”

Emma explains that while rent controls may look good on paper, they don’t work in reality.

She points to Scotland, which saw rents skyrocket by more than 14% in Edinburgh and supply dwindle, with 22,000 homes in the private rented sector lost in just one year due to rent controls.

Emma says she knows rents are increasing in the capital and understands why people think a rent freeze is a good idea but insists it’s not the answer.

She adds that when she asks people why rent controls would work in London and what model they are referring to, one answer keeps coming back.

She explains: “They say, ‘This is London, we won’t be using the same model as anywhere else.’

“Every model has now been tried. In places like Berlin, where they introduced rent controls, demand increased by 172%. If we had demand rise by 172% in London, the fallout would be catastrophic.”

Emma also points out that the London Assembly’s own research showed that if rent controls were introduced in the capital, the number of homes available to rent could fall by as much as 62%.

She says that even with this evidence, Mr Khan continues to call for rent controls, including during his mayoral election campaign.

She explains to Property118: “The fact that the mayor is still pushing rent controls, despite all the worldwide evidence and the London Assembly’s own research, simply comes down to the fact that there is a real issue.

“We know there’s been an exponential rise in the private rented sector in London, and costs have inflated over the last 20 years, with people paying a huge portion of their income on rent. But tackling that problem isn’t as simple as saying, ‘We will just control rents.’”

Importance of good landlords

The Conservatives say they are standing up for landlords and want to change the media narrative by acknowledging their importance.

Emma explains: “We need that engagement and acknowledgement that landlords play an important role in London’s housing market, and we want them to stay.

“We need to talk about the positive contribution of landlords to housing and making it clear that not all landlords are in it for financial gain.”

Emma explains that her party want to be advocates for landlords, which is something politicians often struggle with.

She says: “Personally, when I think about landlords, I’m not thinking of ones that have a 200-property portfolio, but someone who’s perhaps inherited a deceased relative’s property or a small landlord with only one or two properties who is just making it by.”

Emma points out that, compared to the media stereotype of landlords constantly raising rents, it’s not the case.

She says: “I know landlords who, once they have a good tenant, are not raising rent for years and years.

“You hear horror stories of landlords raising rents by hundreds of pounds, but the reality is if you have a good landlord and a good tenant, the landlord will not have raised the rent even once because they value having a good tenant. These are the stories you hear in London that sometimes get missed.”

Emma explains the Conservatives will keep lobbying for landlords but are constrained by not having the mayoralty but will push harder when they do.

She says: “Once we do have the mayoralty back in London, we need to act on this because we are losing so many landlords to Essex and Hertfordshire.

“Once you put those restrictions in, it’s the good landlords who are leaving, and London is being left with the criminal landlords who don’t mind if you bring in more regulations.”

Criminal landlords will not play by the rules

The Conservatives are supportive of some of the elements in the Renters’ Rights Bill but are concerned about how the bill will work in practice.

Emma points to the abolition of Section 21, warning it will place a huge strain on the already overburdened court system.

She says: “The court system at the moment is not going to support what is in the Renters’ Rights Bill with the huge court backlog. It’s not going to be feasible to carry out these processes in a timely manner through the court system.

“My concern is that while there may be good intentions, unless we fix the problems in the courts, there’s going to be huge issues.”

Another problem with the bill, Emma explains, is that no matter how many rules and regulations are introduced, criminal landlords will still be able to get away with offering poor quality accommodation.

She says: “Unscrupulous landlords are not going to play by the rules. While there are benefits to introducing more regulations, those bad landlords who continue to cause problems for tenants won’t be affected. The Renters’ Rights Bill doesn’t change that.

“The concern is that by failing to recognise that the majority of landlords do play by the book and do the right thing, we’re not tackling the real issue, the minority who don’t will simply carry on as they always have.”

EPC C targets could lead to long-term tenants being kicked out

Ed Miliband has proposed all private rented properties need to meet EPC C targets by 2030, and by 2028 for new tenancies.

Mr Khan has previously spoken of his support for more energy-efficient homes, after claiming 494,000 private rental properties in London currently have a substandard energy efficiency rating.

Emma says she wants to make homes more energy-efficient and supports the target but warns it cannot be a one-size-fits-all solution for private rented properties.

She explains: “The reality is London is full of old Victorian houses, and there’s a lot of tenants who have been renting those homes for years. The mission to get those properties to an EPC C standard by 2030 is perhaps impossible.

“The reality is you’re going to kick long-term tenants out, tenants who are happy and safe in their homes. They might not be as energy efficient as we’d like, but they’re family homes. And we’re going to say they must leave if the landlord can’t meet these targets? Surely that’s not where we want to be.”

Emma also points out that there is a workforce shortage to help meet EPC C targets.

Previously, the government announced plans to train more than 18,000 retrofit professionals to meet energy-efficiency targets.

However, the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) also says that meeting EPC C targets will be an impossible task, with 5,000 retrofits needing to be completed every day to meet the deadline.

Emma explains even Mr Khan has struggled with workforce shortages on his Solar Together scheme.

The City Hall scheme allowed Londoners to club together to buy discounted solar panels, but it has faced huge delays. A BBC report revealed the supplier, Green Energy Together UK, went into liquidation, leaving some with solar panels that didn’t work and huge costs.

She explains: “The project collapsed because it was oversold, leading to thousands of complaints and unfulfilled orders.

“The mayor failed on his promise to deliver energy improvements. We have to face the reality: even with funds, workforce shortages make it hard to get this work done across London. If every landlord started now to meet the 2030 target, I don’t see how it’s possible.”

How Emma’s political journey began

At just 13, Emma made the bold move of joining the Conservative Party, despite growing up in a household that voted Labour.

“My parents were more Labour voters, so maybe it was a teenager rebellion by joining the Conservatives!”, she says.

Emma explains she involved herself with politics early on through the injustices around her, particularly to do with crime.

From her passion for politics, she became a councillor in her early 20s and has never looked back.

She says: “I think when everyone gets into politics, they think they want to change the world, and you just start helping individuals and changing their life for the better.

“I want to do more of that, so when the opportunity for the London Assembly came up, I took it and I’ve been a member since 2021. It’s a great opportunity to not just help in the council area where I live but help Londoners across the city.”

In 2023, she was elected deputy leader of the City Hall Conservatives.

Solutions to London’s housing crisis

Emma explains there are three key things needed to solve the housing crisis in the capital.

She says: “It comes down to a market issue, we have to meet demand with supply, and it’s about build, build, build.”

However, Emma points out that these need to be the right types of homes for people to invest in.

She adds: “I fear that some of the targets we’ve set have pushed developers to cram as many units as possible onto small sites, resulting in homes people don’t want to buy or rent.

“It’s just a number on a sheet, how many units can we squeeze in. We need to build more, yes, but build larger homes, like more two- and three-bedroom properties.

“Why are we building countless studio and one-bed flats when most renters live with friends or family? It’s causing overcrowding across London.

“Building bigger homes for families to buy and for young people to rent with friends is part of the solution.”

Emma also points out that car-free developments are part of the problem in the housing crisis in London, as many people need a car.

She explains: “These are not the type of places people want and if you live on the border of London, you need a car and you cannot rely on public transport.”

The Conservatives say that London is the only country in the G7 with only one global city and warn that the concentration of demand in the capital is worsening the housing crisis. Emma calls for more investment to level up other parts of the country.

She says: “As London politicians, we need to stand up and level up other parts of the country when it comes to housing.

“We need to have at least one other global city in the UK because that would help reduce the housing crisis by spreading demand and creating more places to build.

“If we keep going at this rate in London, even if we massively accelerate building, we aren’t going to catch up with demand unless we find another global city in the UK.”

For the third solution, Emma suggests many people are stuck renting and for more help with ownership such as through more deposit schemes to help young people get on the housing ladder.

“Either better ISA schemes through the government, tax relief towards homes or simply negotiations into how we get mortgages with lower deposits.”

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