Comment: ‘Private renters aren’t (all) bad people, so when will we treat them better?’

I write this from the Evening Standard newsroom, I’d estimate about half populated by “weed-smoking bad people in gangs and crack dens… smashing up the neigbourhood”. It’s flak jackets at dawn around here.

Or so I thought until the current housing minister, Rachel Maclean, assured a Conservative party conference fringe event this week that in fact, plenty of private renters are actually decent, hard-working people.

Some of them are even the children of Tory MPs. What a relief!

My privately renting colleagues and I can rest assured that the Government doesn’t, in fact, think it’s a straight choice between an Assured Shorthold Tenancy and prison.

Given that average London rent now tops £2,500 per month one wonders how an army of layabout, semi criminal weed smokers are finding the money (although arguably they would be as entitled as anyone to a secure, affordable home – maybe it would help keep them out of gangs and crack dens).

Now that that’s been cleared up, might we see tenant-centred rental reform at long last?

Housing Secretary Michael Gove has promised the second reading of his long-awaited Renters Reform Bill in the autumn, but even if that transpires there’s still an awfully long way to go to get a fair deal for renters.

I’ve long wondered why private tenants – who account for about a third of London’s population by the way – have been treated with such contempt.

The words spoken by the 15th housing minister in 13 years paint a pretty revealing picture.

All political parties need to wake up to the fact that humanity is not determined by housing tenure. Political engagement often is though.

If we want change, renters need to join forces to fight for a fairer system.