Homelessness minister quits over tenant rent hike allegations

Reply to the comment left by Richard AA at 08/08/2025 – 13:48
I’m using ‘hypocrite’ to refer to the government generally here.

This government came to power with the promise that they would grow the economy. They then increased the minimum wage and employers’ national insurance and Angela Rayner proposed changes that would increase the cost of employing people. You could say to yourself “did they really know what they are doing…is it just that they are incompetent?” and this would be a fair question, given that most labour MPs have never run a business.

But Rachel Reeves worked for a bank. What banks do as part of core business is analyse how many borrowers and businesses will go bust in response to certain market stimuli. It’s part of the job. This government will have known that a lot of small businesses were leveraged after the Covid outbreak. So they will have known that their changes would result in people becoming unemployed and businesses going bust. And they did it anyway….they said one thing but did something else. So I don’t think that ‘hypocrite’ is strong at all. I think hypocrite is accurate.

But I don’t think that calling Ms Ali a hypocrite would be fair. As far as I can tell she did nothing illegal, she fell on her sword, and whether that was because of honour or because she was smart enough to see the disaster ahead I don’t know.

To me Ms Ali stood out in this government because she appears not to have been a hypocrite.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 08/08/2025 – 11:26
Why did she resign then?

Reply to the comment left by Adrian Jones at 08/08/2025 – 14:31
My best guess is that she is smart enough to understand that the Renters Reform Bill is going to cause a lot of collateral damage…it’s going to cause a lot of homelessness. So why would a competent person want to remain as the homelessness minister? “You know what…that greasy pole just isn’t worth it…”

As for ‘doing something wrong’, as far as I can tell she didn’t. Angela Rayner bought her council tax as her main home…I suspect she rented it out…but I suspect that she didn’t pay capital gains tax when she sold it. There’s no suggestion here that Ms Ali intended to ‘flip’ her home in order not to pay GGT, as many MPs did years ago.

I don’t know enough to know whether this property was mortgaged, but if it was and it wasn’t in a Ltd Company then on an MPs salary Ms Ali will have been unable to offset her finance costs. With interest rates having gone up she may even have been losing money on the property after tax. She might have had no choice other than (1) try to sell (2) if you can’t sell then increase the rent to cover the extra tax. She would understand these things because she’s a landlord.

One of the odd things about this government is that it was George Osborne and the Conservatives who introduced the policy to stop landlords offsetting their finance costs against rents. If this government was smart they’d realise they could reverse that policy to increase investment in housing, at least for housing at EPC band C+….and blame the Conservatives….but they aren’t even smart enough to do that.

I can’t see any evidence that Ms Ali did anything wrong. It’s hard to be entirely sure without knowing all the facts…was the property mortgaged for example, did she intend to declare and pay CGT….but it may just be that this government lost one of their few competent ministers.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 08/08/2025 – 12:04
… Stupid enough for the Labour Govt to implement in the RRB.

Reply to the comment left by Chris @ Possession Friend at 08/08/2025 – 15:21
I think Ms Ali has gone because she’s not stupid.

In February 2025 Angela Rayner said there are no excuses not to build the 1.5 million houses she promised:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9d528g755qo

Yes there are Angela – firstly, nobody has the money to pay for them because you are penalising investment and you haven’t got enough money to pay for other things like defence for example.

Secondly, because you have put up employers NI and the minimum wage you’ve increased the risk of employing people…but it’s not only small business (60% of the economy) that can’t grow:…the building industry can’t afford to pay the people to build the houses.

Whatever their intentions might be, labour ministers are not exactly gifted are they?

And with the Renters Reform Bill coming down the pipeline to further increase rents labour is proposing to increase the risk of housing people in the PRS… just as labour is increasing the risk of employing people.

So why ever would a clever person want to remain as the ‘homelessness minister’?

I think Ms Ali stands out because she ISN’T STUPID.

From the Renter’s Rights Bill (my bold);

“(a) in relation to a relevant person relying on Ground 1 or 1A in
a notice under section 8 or a purported notice of possession
(see subsection (2)(a)), the period— “

Reply to the comment left by Monty Bodkin at 08/08/2025 – 15:37
I think if I read this right, in this comment you are saying in response to the question “is what Ms Ali has done bad” you are saying that what Ms Ali has done would be illegal under the RRB because of the section you quote.

But you do also say that ‘It highlights the utter stupidity of this legislation’.

As far as I can tell Ms Ali has done nothing illegal today though. It may simply be that, like you, she’s smart enough to realise just how stupid this legislation is and also smart enough not to hang around long enough for Keir Starmer or Angela Rayner to make her a scapegoat for homelessness.

The government refused to release the results of its Justice Impact Test. He’s probably never run a small business but Keir Starmer is a lawyer and he can reasonably be expected to understand what the Renters Reform Bill will do to the court system.

Ms Ali probably knows that as well. She just dumped a poisoned chalice. And she may well have been losing money on her house before she put the rent up for the same reason that many landlords on Property118 now lose money.

I’m not really sure that makes her guilty of hypocrisy. Looks to me as though she did the right thing.

Reply to the comment left by Ray Guselli at 08/08/2025 – 11:01
The passing rent was £700 less, granted.

It would be very difficult, if not impossible to charge an above market rent – for the obvious reason that what someone is willing to pay then becomes the market rent. On the other hand there are many tenants paying below market rent – or at least there were. Huge rises in maintenance cost inflation, the rise in interest rates from their artificial low and of course increased taxation and regulation are meaning that these examples are becoming rarer by the day.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 08/08/2025 – 17:29
Do you think she would have resigned if the ipaper hadn’t reported on it?

Reply to the comment left by at 08/08/2025 – 10:24
Absolutely correct – there was no hypocrisy. It’s her job to impose Labour policy, whether she agrees with it or not. But until the law is law – it’s not law. It must be difficult for a housing minister to be a landlord – but she has the right to do so. The UK needs housing ministers with real property insight – and now we’ve lost one. If I’d been her I’d have challenged the tenant groups to a face-to-face televised debate; an intelligent person like her would have wiped the floor with them.