article_snippet.sent: Labour's plans to impose rent controls are ‘economically illiterate’ and will slash investment in new housing, leading to more tenants being evicted by their landlords, experts warned last night.
article_snippet.sent: Ed Miliband said rent controls – demanded by the militant Unite union that bankrolls Labour – would give millions of ‘forgotten’ renters a fairer deal by helping those stuck in so-called Generation Rent by soaring house prices.
article_snippet.sent: But the Generation Rent campaign group said Ed Miliband plans were ‘riddled with loopholes’ and may make tenants’ lives worse.
article_snippet.sent: and said it would suppress house building and push rents up.
article_snippet.sent: Chancellor George Osborne described the plan as a ‘totally economically-illiterate statement that grabs headlines, but is dismissed by every expert who looks at the plan’.
article_snippet.sent: The Confederation of British Industry said the way to tackle the housing crisis was to build more homes, and warned the plans could discourage investment, thereby forcing up rents in the long term.
article_snippet.sent: The Labour leader said rent controls – demanded by the militant Unite union that bankrolls Labour – would give millions of ‘forgotten’ renters a fairer deal by helping those stuck in so-called Generation Rent .
article_snippet.sent: and said it would suppress house building and push rents up.
article_snippet.sent: ‘I don’t think rent controls are going to work in practice.
article_snippet.sent: Rent controls have already proved a disaster in Britain after Rent controls were introduced in the First World War.
article_snippet.sent: Gordon Brown’s favourite economist Paul Krugman, a Nobel prize-winner, has warned that attempts to control rent always fail, writing:
article_snippet.sent: ‘Almost every freshman-level textbook contains a case study on rent control, using a case study on rent control known adverse side-effects to illustrate the principles of supply and demand.
article_snippet.sent: The socialist Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck once said: ‘Next to bombing, rent control seems in many cases to be the most efficient technique for destroying cities.
article_snippet.sent: ’ Alan Ward, of the Residential Landlords Association, warned that rent controls could result in a return to the ugly conditions of the past, adding they ‘would lessen investment in new homes when we need more and serve only to paper over cracks in the market’.
article_snippet.sent: The socialist Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck said: ‘For some, it is easier to achieve a cheap political point by calling for rent controls than provide a prescription for growth in the private rented sector.
article_snippet.sent: ’ David Cox, of the Residential Landlords Association, said rent controls led to a fall in supply and the standard of homes because ‘landlords do not have the money to invest in ongoing maintenance’.
article_snippet.sent: Sam Bowman, of the Adam Smith Institute think-tank, said rent controls were ‘a stunningly bad idea that could clobber renters’.
article_snippet.sent: Sam Bowman, of the Adam Smith Institute think-tank said renters would give landlords a huge incentive to raise rents at the start of a tenancy, adding: ‘Labour has unwittingly announced a policy that could devastate cities and exacerbate the housing crisis.
article_snippet.sent: the Adam Smith Institute said the proposal ‘would result in higher rents, a reduction in the quality of rented property and in the supply of homes to rent without improving affordability’.
highlights_snippet.sent: Housing experts, business and Labour figures have warned it will backfire .
  
highlights_snippet.sent: Generation Rent campaign said Ed Miliband's plan is 'riddled with loopholes'
  Tories said 'drivel' proposal  would suppress house building and push up rents .