Government set to spend over six times more in PRS housing support than on affordable housing

The NEF said the increase ensures people in receipt of Universal Credit or housing benefit are better equipped to deal with recent increases in private rents, which in November had increased by 6.2 per cent year-on-year.

It said that this “vital relief” will help families struggling with the cost of living, but that the new rates of support will once again be frozen from April 2025, meaning “more pain is locked in for low-income private renters”.

And the increase means that “even more public funds are being used to prop up a private rented sector riddled with poor-quality housing and many ineffectual landlords, instead of investing in affordable social housing”, the NEF said.

Alex Diner, senior housing researcher at NEF, said: “Everybody should have an affordable, warm and secure home to live in, yet the government is spending billions subsidising a broken system which too often fails to deliver this.

“It is extremely inefficient for the government to be paying this money to private landlords when it should be building more new genuinely affordable homes and improving the quality and security of tenure for the homes we already have.

“To overcome this mess, the government must build more social homes to meet the rising demand for affordable housing, reverse its U‑turn to loosen energy efficiency standards in the private rented sector and improve its plans to regulate private renting.”

The analysis from the NEF follows polling by the organisation in December that it said revealed how many tenants in the private rented sector (PRS) are “forced to endure rising rents, poor conditions and unacceptable treatment by landlords”.

The polling found that almost 40 per cent of private tenants who moved within the past year are paying an average £1,200 a year above the advertised rate.

It discovered that more than a fifth of PRS tenants have seen their landlords raise the rent mid-way through the tenancy without agreement.

In addition, the poll found that nearly 40 per cent of new private tenants experience damp and mould in their home and almost 20 per cent have reported concerns about the environmental standards of their property to their local council.