No new dawn for renters
Soundings - Print ISSN 1362-6620 - Online ISSN 1741-0797
Volume 2025 Number 90 & 91
No new dawn for renters
Adam Peggs pages 162‑177
DOI: 10.3898/SOUN:90-91.10.2025
Abstract
With the housing emergency increasingly defining social life in Britain, this essay analyses the current Labour government’s ‘Renters’ Rights Act’. Taking a materialist perspective, and with reference to the work of Simon Clarke and Norman Ginsburg, the piece asks the following questions. How much does the Act recalibrate the balance of power between tenants and landlords? What does renters’ reform mean for real estate capital, and which fractions will likely benefit or lose out? What does this mean for the future of the financialisation of housing? Is the Act among the Labour government’s most ‘progressive’ achievements - and does it risk being watered down further on enactment? The essay’s conclusions are twofold. First, that the Act’s modest improvements for renters point toward only limited possibilities for reform under the current government’s political project. Second, that political horizons beyond the private rented sector are necessary for a just housing system.
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To cite this article
Adam Peggs (2025) No new dawn for renters, Soundings, 2025(90 & 91 ), 162-177 . https://doi.org/10.3898/SOUN:90-91.10.2025