Skip to main content
The Morning Star Shop
Housing in crisis: delaying meaningful change to a broken private rental system
The Welsh government is shying away from the obvious answer to a spiralling rental market and increased housing precarity – well-designed and implemented rent controls, writes LUKE FLETCHER
STED SYSTEM: Housing in Grangetown, Cardiff [Jaggery/Creative Commons]

THE cost of renting in Wales has only gone one way — and that’s up. Soaring rents, widespread housing precarity, and an imbalance of power between tenants and landlords have pushed many to the edge. Yet, despite the urgent need for change, the Welsh government’s action on housing has failed to seriously consider one of the most obvious solutions: rent controls.

Instead of acknowledging rent controls as a viable way of easing the burden on renters, the Welsh government’s white paper “on securing a path towards Adequate Housing, including Fair Rents and Affordability,” launched in October 2024, dismisses them based on a lack of evidence.

But here’s the truth: renters are struggling and the private rental sector is broken. We don’t need more data to know that private rents have skyrocketed and that people are being priced out of their own communities. The Welsh government’s refusal to act is a glaring failure to address the core issue.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Tata Steel in Port Talbot, as the last blast furnace at one
Workers' Rights / 3 May 2025
3 May 2025

LUKE FLETCHER pours scorn on Labour’s betrayal of the Welsh steel industry, where the option of nationalisation was sneered at and dismissed – unlike at Scunthorpe where the government stepped in

FOR THE CROWN NOT THE PEOPLE: Gwynt y Mor II, Wales' largest
Features / 22 March 2025
22 March 2025
LUKE FLETCHER fleshes out Plaid Cymru's plan for the revitalisation of Wales's economy
An elderly woman walks with the aid of a cane in Old Havana,
Features / 25 February 2025
25 February 2025
After Joe Biden’s cynical last-minute clemency for Cuba, the new administration has quickly returned to maximum subversive tactics. This socialist island needs our support now more than ever, writes LUKE FLETCHER MS
FOR THE MANY OR THE FEW? Gwynt y Mor offshore wind farm, Wal
Features / 7 December 2024
7 December 2024
LUKE FLETCHER is concerned by the vagueness of Great British Energy's promised benefits to communities in Wales
Similar stories
Various For Sale, Sold and Let By estate agent signs juxtaposed next to a Dreams store in Clapham, London
Class / 18 July 2025
18 July 2025

Our housing crisis isn’t an accident – it’s class war, trapping millions in poverty while landlords and billionaires profit. To solve it, we need comprehensive transformation, not mere tokenistic reform, writes BECK ROBERTSON

Voices of Scotland / 18 February 2025
18 February 2025
The Scottish government has responsibility to protect private rental tenants until rent controls become law. RUTH GILBERT explains the issues at stake
Voices of Scotland / 28 January 2025
28 January 2025
A new Bill seeks to prevent price-gouging landlords evicting tenants under dubious grounds only to hike up the rent for the next tenant. Living Rent is campaigning hard to make sure this provision becomes law, writes ADITI JEHANGIR
Estate agents To Let and For Sale signs in Islington, north
Britain / 5 December 2024
5 December 2024