Burnham's housing moment: why renters need landlords on side, not squeezed out

Andy Burnham's win in Makerfield has turned a local by-election into a national political moment, and with speculation mounting about his future in Labour's leadership, his housing views now carry real weight. For anyone renting, letting or investing in property, that matters. The mayor's instincts on housing will shape the debate, and there is plenty in his reported agenda worth engaging with rather than dismissing.

His ambition to build a new generation of council homes deserves genuine praise. England needs more social housing, more routes into ownership for first-time buyers and more good-quality rented homes, and a serious housing strategy has to make space for all three. But building council housing is slow, expensive and demanding: it requires land, planning capacity, construction labour, public money and political consistency, none of which are in plentiful supply. Even the strongest commitment will not relieve the pressure renters face today.

That pressure is substantial. Almost a fifth of households in England live in privately rented homes, and many of them arguably belong in social or council accommodation. That is a symptom of the wider housing shortage, not a failure of the private rented sector. Those households need a home now, not at some undefined future date, and that reality should anchor any debate about rental policy.

Which is why the renewed talk of rent controls should worry anyone who wants a functioning rental market. Capping rents by instruction sounds simple, but it risks distorting the market in damaging ways. Historically, rent inflation has tracked wage inflation; landlords know that pricing beyond what tenants can afford is not a sustainable business model. Aside from the post-Covid spike, when rents rose alongside the cost of everyday goods and services, rents have broadly followed wages. Rent inflation has eased over the past twelve months, and tenants can now challenge increases under the Renters' Rights Act, so it is fair to ask whether controls are genuinely needed or simply a useful soundbite for a leadership contest.

The consequences of getting this wrong are not abstract. If policy makes letting riskier or less viable, some landlords will sell up and others will pause investment. The result is fewer homes to choose from, more competition for every listing and, over time, more upward pressure on rents. Notably, the current Labour leadership has already recognised these risks and declined to adopt rent controls, which is the right call. And when responsible landlords exit, those homes do not automatically become council houses; they may go to owner-occupiers, be converted to other uses, or leave the rented market entirely, none of which helps the tenant who needs somewhere to live next month.

There is also a broader point about how the debate is framed. Landlords have absorbed considerable regulatory layering in recent years, and most accept the direction of travel because tenants deserve safe, secure, well-maintained homes, and because good homes attract and retain tenants. But accepting change is not the same as absorbing unlimited change; every rule has a cost and affects investment decisions. Casting this as landlords versus renters makes for easy politics but worse housing. Tenants need good landlords, landlords need policy stability, and councils need a functioning private rented sector, because without it the strain on social housing, homelessness services and temporary accommodation only grows.

If Burnham does go on to play a bigger role nationally, the opportunity is a more balanced approach: back the ambition for more council housing, keep driving standards up, come down hard on rogue operators, and work with responsible landlords rather than treating them as the problem. Britain needs more social homes, but it also needs a healthy, well-regulated and investable private rented sector. Weakening one part of the housing system will not strengthen the other, and renters will feel the difference first.