The Government is being urged to take action to prevent taxpayer-funded insulation grants from enriching private landlords, by limiting rent increases following energy efficiency upgrades.
The Renters’ Rights Bill returns for Report Stage in the House of Lords today (Tuesday July 1st). An amendment to the Bill, tabled by Baroness Jenny Jones and supported by Generation Rent, seeks to make sure landlords can’t hike the rent after receiving public money to improve the energy efficiency of a property.
The amendment would mean more landlords could afford to meet planned Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards, but their tenants would also benefit from lower bills, rather than face a rent rise that could cancel out the savings. Assurance on rent would encourage more low-income tenants to take up the grants.
At the same time, new polling* has revealed that nearly four million private renters in England and Wales are regularly struggling to pay their energy bills. The polling, commissioned by the campaign group Generation Rent and conducted by Opinium, found more than four in ten (42%) private renters in England and Wales regularly struggle to pay their energy bills. This figure is almost twice as high as the government’s statistic of the percentage of private renters living in fuel poverty, and highlights the urgency of the government’s plans for making rented homes cheaper to heat.
Worryingly, nearly half (44%) of those who regularly struggle with energy costs said they’ve had to cut back on spending on daily essentials like food to cope with the costs of their bills. More than a third (34%) have gone into their savings, a third (33%) had to borrow money from friends or family and more than a quarter (27%) have gone into debt as a result of their energy bills.
The polling has also found that more than 3.6 million renters (40%) are living with damp or mould and a quarter are living in a cold home due to poor insulation. Meanwhile, nearly a third (29%) of renters have reported a maintenance issue to their landlord that hasn’t been fixed and one in twenty have experienced racism or discrimination from a landlord or letting agent.
Despite living in such poor conditions, nearly half of renters (46%) have seen their landlord hike their rent since moving into their current home.
Sean is a private renter. He described his experiences of renting mouldy homes.
“I rented an ultra damp basement which one contractor reckoned should never have received planning permission. My clothes became covered in mould and my physical and mental health deteriorated significantly as well as my asthma and arthritis in particular. I lost hundreds of pounds’ worth of clothing. I felt disenfranchised and depressed. If I hadn’t had relatives willing to put me up, I’d have been homeless.”
As part of its Warm Homes Plan, the Department for Energy, Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) is mandating all private rented homes in England and Wales meet Energy Efficiency Rating C by 2030. This means over 55% of private rented homes in England will need energy efficiency improvements in the next five years. In some local areas, the number is much higher, at over 75% of privately rented homes. The most recent Private Landlords Survey found 47% of landlords had at least one property with an Energy Performance Certificate rating of D or below. Of these landlords, only 35% said they were planning to improve the energy efficiency of some or all of their properties.
Generation Rent welcomes the government’s action on this issue but is concerned that, without protections against eviction or rent hikes, many renters won’t enjoy the benefits of these improvements. A joint submission to a recent Government consultation outlining these concerns was signed by 32 organisations including Generation Rent, E3G, Shelter, Friends of the Earth and the End Fuel Poverty Coalition.
These concerns are also felt by private renters. The polling asked renters about their support for the government’s policies in this area. Net support increased by 41 points from +14% to +55% when renters were presented with a scenario where the government would protect them from rent increases versus when they were told their rent would increase as a result of improvements.
The Government provides grants for landlords to make energy efficiency improvements when they rent to tenants on low incomes. Under the new Warm Homes Local Grant scheme, landlords are required to sign a declaration that they “understand rent should not be increased as a result of upgrades” funded by grant. However, there is no way to make sure landlords abide by this.
Baroness Jenny Jones’ amendment would go a step further and make sure that the First Tier Tribunal (the system by which renters can challenge rent hikes) would see a government grant as an improvement to the home made by the tenant. This would mean it would not be grounds for a rent increase.
Parissa Zand, Research and Policy Manager at Generation Rent said:
“Everyone needs a good quality, affordable home. It’s the foundation of our lives. But millions of renters are living in cold homes with shocking levels of mould and damp, while we regularly struggle to pay our energy bills. These issues ripple across our lives, impacting our mental and physical health and forcing us to make really difficult decisions like having to go without food or go into debt to pay our bills.
“The government’s ambition to lift renters out of fuel poverty is welcome. But landlord groups are already warning they will increase rents as a result.
“The danger is that public money could be used to enrich landlords rather than benefit tenants. We are already seeing cases where landlords have evicted tenants who rely on benefits after publicly funded energy efficiency upgrades, so they could get a better price for their property. Without protections, landlords could easily raise the rent to effectively cancel out their tenants’ energy bill savings.”
Baroness Jones, who has tabled the amendment, says:
“I’m putting my amendment because I’m worried that a good policy on energy efficiency will end up annoying the very people it is aiming to help. The government are doing the right thing for the climate with higher energy efficiency standards. They are doing the right thing for landlords with grants to help them meet those standards.
“The only people who don’t get a guaranteed better life are the poor tenants who have to put up with the dust, noise and inconvenience of the energy improvements being done, but without knowing if their rent will be going up as their energy bills go down.”
Claire*** is a renter in her 50s who lives with a very cold home and mould in East Sussex. She claims Universal Credit and PIP. She said:
“My home is freezing. I’m always in debt with my gas and electricity bills, but my landlord still looks to take any opportunity to hike my rent. I would take any promise they make not to raise the rent with a massive pinch of salt.”
Notes:
*Polling conducted in April 2025 using a 2000 person representative sample of private renters in the UK. Figures extrapolated from polling based on the number of individuals aged 18 or over and living in private rented homes in England and Wales taken from the 2021 Census.
**Survey conducted in October 2024 with 900 respondents.
***Name changed to protect person’s identity.
