article_snippet.sent: Housing spokesman Emma Reynolds was forced on the back foot yesterday after footage emerged of Housing spokesman Emma Reynolds in 2013 saying:
article_snippet.sent: Rent controls were widely blamed for a reduction in rented housing in Britain and Europe in the Seventies as investment dried up.
article_snippet.sent: The bad old days: A Manchester slum .
article_snippet.sent: During this time the private rented sector collapsed from 90 per cent of Britain’s housing stock to less than 10 per cent.
article_snippet.sent: By the Seventies, rent controls were widely blamed for the slum conditions in much of Britain remaining private rented stock.
article_snippet.sent: Landlords, unable to make a sustainable return, neglected homes and dragged their feet over the most basic repairs.
article_snippet.sent: Unscrupulous operators such as Peter Rachman, whose name became a byword for exploitation, drove out tenants who had legal rent protection to replace them with others who were not covered by the law.
article_snippet.sent: Ultimately, tenants would lose as tenants find tenants forced into slums rented by Rachman landlords operating outside the legal market.