The young ones

If you’re in your late teens, 20s or early 30s, chances are you’ll spend some time living in the private rented sector. Whether you’re a student or a young professional looking for the flexibility renting offers or a young person for whom home ownership or social housing is currently out of reach, you’ll probably turn to private landlords for housing.

So, as the private rented sector has grown, it’s also increasingly become a young sector - more than half of all private tenants are now under the age of 35.

But are local authorities, the government and landlords doing enough to ensure young people get access to the rented homes they need? We on the all-party parliamentary group for the private rented sector have this week published a report setting out what we think needs to be done to ensure the system works better for tenants and landlords alike.

In particular, we’re calling for the government to review rules restricting housing benefit for the under-35s to the equivalent of a room in a shared house, to see whether the changes mean not enough housing is available at the right rent for those who need it.

We also want ministers to look at the impact that planning powers, known as article 4 directions, are having. In some cases, where councils are concerned that areas are becoming dominated by student housing for example, they may be a useful tool, but we want to ensure landlords are able to provide enough rented housing where it’s needed.

We’d also like to see an increase in the ‘rent-a-room’ tax allowance to encourage more homeowners to let rooms to lodgers and a ban on council tax being charged for bedsit rooms, or the introduction of a lower band for bedsits, to ensure rented rooms aren’t made unaffordable by more councils charging separate council tax on them.

And we also think there’s a good case for rethinking VAT rules to encourage more properties to be converted for housing use.

Growing numbers of our young people rely on the private rented sector for homes. We need to make sure that the benefits, tax and planning framework we have in place allows them to find the homes they need, at a price they can afford. It’s time to work together to maximise the supply of good quality homes in the youngest part of our housing market.

Oliver Colvile is the Conservative MP for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport and chair of the all party parliamentary group for the private rented sector.