Morning Briefing: call to make long tenancies mandatory follows rumours of axe for plan

In the news

Amid reports in the national media that the prime minister and chancellor will scotch plans for three-year tenancies in the private rented sector (PRS), the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) publishes a blog today saying that legislation remains the best route to introduce it.

“While a voluntary system would offer greater security for some, our concern is that not all prospective tenants are able to exert the same degree of leverage to ask for a longer tenancy,” writes David Pipe, policy and practice officer at the CIH.

The consultation on the proposals closed yesterday. Despite the briefing to The Sun – the government has not yet confirmed a way forward.

A written ministerial statement, published this week, has caused some confusion on this point through a reference to previously announced plans not to introduce fixed-term tenancies in the social sector. But the next steps for the PRS remain to be seen.

Elsewhere The Guardian reports on warnings that a failure to properly manage the next stage of the Universal Credit (UC) rollout could ‘sink’ the welfare reform.

It quotes the Resolution Foundation warning that families could be put off making a claim altogether as trust is so low. “Get things wrong and UC’s reputation risks taking another battering, and worryingly some families could be put off claiming UC altogether,” said David Finch, former senior economic analyst and now senior research fellow at the thinktank.

Labour will look for an amendment to the Tenant Fees Bill aimed at introducing higher penalties for rogue landlords, reports The Independent.

In a round up of local press stories – South Cambridgeshire Council is planning to bid for the new Housing Revenue Account borrowing flexibility, the Dorset Echo reports on rising housing waiting lists in the West Country, Chronicle Live writes that Newcastle has the most student housing in the entire country, and the BBC reports on concerns about a lack of social housing in Derry.

And in Kent Online there is an unhappy story of a family evicted by a property firm who are being offered housing in Durham – 330 miles away.

Elsewhere, yesterday’s Grenfell Inquiry raised concerns about the council’s failure to provide building plans to firefighters. You can read our diary here.

House builder Berkeley’s latest trading update – which criticised government policy – has caused a stir. The Financial Times publishes an opinion piece saying that the company is “playing the housing game”.

“It seems a bit rich for Berkeley to moan that the government is now standing in the way of ‘additionality’, when it has added millions to its market value and to its directors’ remuneration without having to build many additional homes or take additional risk,” it says.

And the website Proactive Investors headlines its story simply “Berkeley Group rolling in cash, whinges about housing headwinds”.