Britain’s minister for homelessness has been forced to resign over reports she evicted tenants from a property she owned and then increased the rent by hundreds of pounds.<\/p>\n
Rushanara Ali said she had followed all the legal requirements “at all times” but that continuing in her role would have distracted from the work of the government.<\/p>\n
Her exit represents an embarrassing blow for Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government, which trails Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK party in opinion polls just over a year after winning a landslide election victory.<\/p>\n
Ms Ali is the fourth Labour minister to step down under pressure.<\/p>\n
The transport minister, the anti-corruption minister and a junior health minister all previously quit, for separate reasons. Others have left the government over policy disagreements.<\/p>\n
What is Rushanara Ali alleged to have done?<\/p>\n
Ms Ali, who has spoken out previously against tenants being exploited and “unreasonable rent increases”, evicted four tenants from her four-bedroom house in east London last year as the property was being sold, The i Paper reported on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Just weeks later, the property, which had a monthly rent of 3,300 pounds ($6,800), was re-listed for 700 pounds ($1,440) more in rent after no buyer was found, and later rented out at the higher rent, the report added.<\/p>\n
The end of rental contracts is considered one of the leading causes of homelessness in Britain, and the government is preparing a renters’ rights bill that will ban landlords from re-listing a property for higher rent within six months after eviction.<\/p>\n
“I wanted to make it clear that at all times I have followed all relevant legal requirements,” Ms Ali said in her letter to Sir Keir.<\/p>\n
“I believe I took my responsibilities and duties seriously, and the facts demonstrate this.”<\/p>\n
The opposition Conservatives were quick to pounce on her departure.<\/p>\n
“Keir Starmer promised a government of integrity \u2014 but has instead presided over a government of hypocrisy and self-service,” Tory chairman Kevin Hollinrake said.<\/p>\n
Reuters\/ABC<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Britain’s minister for homelessness has been forced to resign over reports she evicted tenants from a property she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,117668,807,8414,257,1144,17649,23219,117667,712,61977,22145,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-326627","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-homelessness-minister","13":"tag-keir-starmer","14":"tag-labour","15":"tag-london","16":"tag-northern-ireland","17":"tag-rent","18":"tag-resignation","19":"tag-rushanara-ali","20":"tag-scotland","21":"tag-tenants","22":"tag-tower-hamlets","23":"tag-uk","24":"tag-united-kingdom","25":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114990534076595499","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}