This article is an external press release originally published on the Landlord News website, which has now been migrated to the Just Landlords blog.
The first Register of Members’ Financial Interests of the new Parliament was published recently. It reveals that one in five MPs are landlords.
Is Your Local MP a Landlord?
There are currently 126 residential landlords in Parliament. Landlords account for just 3% of the UK population, but are represented by 19% of the House of Commons – the same proportion of the population that rent privately.
This is down from 153 at the end of the last parliament, but the Guardian claims it is up on the 2010 figure.
Lobby group, Generation Rent, has voiced its concerns: “What worries us about this the most is that even if those landlord MPs’ hearts are in the right place – they all probably treat their tenants well (right?) – that could easily give them a rose-tinted outlook on the private rented sector.
“‘Because I’m a great landlord,’ they might tell themselves, ‘there’s no need to reform the system.’ And that will distort the debate.”1
The Register also details that a further ten MPs let out commercial land and property, and another 88 own a second home that they don’t let out (at a rent above the £10,000 per year threshold).
Use Generation Rent’s spreadsheet to determine whether your local MP is a landlord: http://www.generationrent.org/is_your_mp_a_landlord
The organisation is urging everyone to email their MP to remind them not to forget private tenants in this Parliament.
1 http://www.generationrent.org/is_your_mp_a_landlord
