![\"For](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/property-to-let-rent-e1776070765884.jpg\")
\t\tThe proposed rent freeze has been criticised (Peter Summers\/Getty Images)\t<\/p>\n\t\t\tTuesday 28 April 2026 7:45 am
\n\t\t\t\t\t\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Updated:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\t\tTuesday 28 April 2026 1:17 pm\n\t<\/p>\n
\t\tThe proposed rent freeze has been criticised (Peter Summers\/Getty Images)\t<\/p>\n
Rachel Reeves has fuelled rumours she is considering a rent freeze as leading economists said the policy would be a \u201cdisaster\u201d for renters and landlords.<\/p>\n
Addressing the Commons on Tuesday afternoon, the Chancellor was asked by a Labour MP to implement a freeze on private rents.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will do everything in my power and use every lever we have to bear down on the cost of living, including for people in the private rented sector,\u201d Reeves said.<\/p>\n
The Chancellor is reportedly considering banning landlords from raising rents for private sector homes for one year, in a bid to protect renters from the impacts of the Iran war.<\/p>\n
The government had previously resisted imposing rent controls as part of its upcoming renters\u2019 rights act, which will ban \u201cno-fault\u201d evictions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The proposed rent freeze, first reported by The Guardian<\/a>, comes as ministers are reportedly willing to consider exceptional measures to protect household budgets as inflation begins to tick up.\u00a0<\/p>\n But leading economists were quick to snub the plan, with Robert Colvile, head of the Centre for Policy Studies, describing it as a \u201cmind-boggling scale of intervention in the private market\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the government wants to bring rents down it should build an awful lot more houses,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Labour housebuilding performance criticised<\/p>\n Simon French, chief economist at Panmure Liberum<\/a>, said: \u201cThere is a scenario where this policy would have got a more sympathetic hearing at the start of the Parliament when the previous decades of failure to build could have been cited as (loose) justification.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBut having presided over a slowdown in housing starts and rental reforms that are making the UK supply side less flexible then this is a rather harder sell.\u201d<\/p>\n The government has pledged to build 1.5m homes by the next general election but housebuilders and construction figures say this target has become nearly impossible.\u00a0<\/p>\n A leading construction trade body told City AM the government\u2019s inheritance tax regime is preventing firms from scaling up housebuilding, and the head of construction firm Breedon said<\/a> the target was \u201cimpossible the day it was announced\u201d.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tRead more<\/p>\n \t\t\tLandlords, get ready to be gazundered<\/a><\/p>\n The British Property Federation, the trade body for the real estate industry, said there is \u201cno surer way for the Government to kill off its ambitions to deliver the homes we desperately need\u201d than implement rent controls.<\/p>\n \u2018Disaster for landlord confidence\u2019<\/p>\n