Landlords woke to fresh policy risk on 20 July 2026 as Andy Burnham, in his first hours as prime minister, confirmed that UK rent controls are among the options on his desk to ease the cost of living.
Speaking to reporters in the Downing Street garden after his first speech in the role, Burnham was asked whether bus fares, energy bills or rent freezes would form part of his package of support for hard pressed households.
“We’re looking at all of those things,” the new prime minister said, while stressing that no final decisions had been made. Further announcements are expected on Tuesday 21 July 2026.
Burnham used the speech itself to promise “breathing space” for people hit by rising prices, alongside possible support for energy bills and a cap on the cost of bus fares.
For portfolio investors, the rent freeze reference will be the line that matters. It is the first time a sitting prime minister has publicly floated rent controls as live policy for England.
A prime minister with form on rent controls
Burnham’s interest in regulating rents is not new, according to the National Residential Landlords Association.
In an assessment of the new prime minister’s housing record published on 20 July 2026, NRLA chief executive Ben Beadle noted that Burnham pledged as a mayoral candidate in 2016 to “seek powers to regulate rent increases and property standards”, and in February 2023 signed an open letter calling for an immediate freeze on private sector rents until the cost of living crisis was over.
Beadle wrote that the possibilities now include a national rent freeze or system of controls, or, in line with Burnham’s devolution agenda, handing regional mayors the freedom to impose their own. The NRLA argues rent controls “only ever result in reduced options for tenants and lower housing standards”.
Investors have heard versions of this argument before. Sadiq Khan has repeatedly pushed for rent controls in London despite Scotland’s failed experiment, where caps introduced in 2022 were followed by falling investment and constrained supply before being lifted.
What the rental market data shows
The backdrop is a market where rent growth is already cooling. According to the Office for National Statistics, average UK private rents rose 3.3 per cent in the 12 months to May 2026, to £1,383 a month, down from 3.5 per cent the previous month.
Scotland, the one part of Great Britain to have recently operated rent caps, recorded the weakest growth of all at 1.0 per cent, with average rents of £1,009.
Any intervention would also land on a sector already shedding stock. Industry forecasts suggest a landlord exodus could remove 220,000 rental homes from the private rented sector in 2026, a squeeze on supply that most economists argue rent caps would worsen.
What this means for investors
Nothing has been decided, and Burnham was careful to say so. But the direction of travel is clear enough: a prime minister with a long record of sympathy for rent regulation, under immediate pressure to deliver visible cost of living relief.
Investors should watch Tuesday’s announcements for any mention of rents, and for signals on whether powers might be devolved to regional mayors rather than imposed nationally. A devolved model would create a patchwork of rules, making location analysis even more decisive for yields.
In the meantime, the compliance burden is already rising as the Renters’ Rights Act reshapes the rental market, and landlords who document their rent setting decisions carefully now will be best placed whatever form intervention takes. Rent controls remain a possibility rather than a policy. That distinction, for now, is what portfolio investors are trading on.
