The Liberal Democrats have vowed to address the power imbalance between tenants and landlords by introducing national licensing and standards, longer tenancies, rent smoothing and empowered councils.

In their ‘Tackling the housing crisis’ policy paper, unveiled at the recent party conference, the Lib Dems explained that under a new licensing system, rental properties would need to meet national minimum standards on safety, the environment and service provision.

They would also need to demonstrate they can deliver a good service and show that when something goes wrong, such as a boiler breaking, they will be able to have it mended in a timely fashion.

It’s no surprise that the party also wants to scrap Section 21 and would extend the default tenancy from one year to three years, while introducing rent smoothing which would mean landlords could only increase rent by the Bank of England Base Rate during a contract.

Austerity

It acknowledges that all this would need to be properly resourced and enforced and adds: “Over 10 years of austerity has left councils under-resourced to enforce our current standards. We would ensure that councils have the expertise and resources to prevent bad landlords and tenants.”

The Lib Dems would also increase minimum energy efficiency standards for privately rented properties and remove the cost cap on improvements - aiming for rented properties to be minimum EPC Band C in the next five years and minimum EPC Band B in the next 10 years where feasible.

Green figure Caroline Lucas (pictured) has also slammed Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s row back of green policies.

She told Metro: “The reason we have a rental crisis in this country isn’t because of a shortage of homes, or even a struggling economy. It’s because of an utter lack of political will from successive incompetent Tory Governments to make basic, common-sense reforms.”