LABOUR Party leader Miliband yesterday pledged that the next Labour government will introduce legislation to cap rents so they cannot rise by more than the rate of inflation (CPI) during secure three-year tenancies.
He also pledged legislation to:
• Require landlords and letting agents to disclose the rent levels charged to previous tenants so that householders can negotiate the best possible deal at the start of their contract.
• Penalise rogue landlords by reducing buy-to-let tax relief for those who own hundreds of thousands of properties which do not meet basic standards.
Miliband said: ‘Labour will build the homes which local people want to buy.
‘But we will never turn our backs on Generation Rent. And we want to encourage all those responsible landlords who provide decent homes for people and a stable income for themselves.’
On the campaign trail in Stevenage, Herts, on Saturday, Miliband said: ‘A Tory second term means stealth privatisation of the National Health Service – NHS patients finding themselves pushed to the back of longer and longer queues, operations delayed and an NHS not there when people need it.
‘Under the Tories, it would be a two-tier NHS where you have to pay to get seen.’
Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said the prime minister and health secretary had not been ‘honest’ about the ‘scale and pace of privatisation on their watch’.
