Protesters call for rent controls as 2,682 households evicted in first quarter of 2024 in England and Wales

Bailiffs are evicting more renting households than at any time in the last six years, the Ministry of Justice has said, as protesters chanted for rent controls outside the HQ of Britain’s biggest listed private landlord.

More than 100 members of the London Renters Union (LRU) set off red and blue smoke canisters as they descended on the glass and steel office of the property firm Grainger, which rents out more than 10,000 homes in the UK bringing in a 28% pretax profit margin on nearly £100m a year in rent.

For so many millions, the home-owning dream has died. Labour must protect them, and reconstruct a dysfunctional housing market

• Stephen Cowan chaired the independent private rented sector commission
  

Sarah faces daily torment. An impending rent rise means she can no longer afford to live in the home she shares with her two children. She has to downsize. That means potentially having to split up her boys. Her youngest is doing his A-levels. Her oldest, just turned 18, is struggling with mental health issues. It is an unenviable problem.

“Will I have to say that one son lives elsewhere and one lives with me,” asks Sarah (not her real name). “At best I can try to protect them and say it’s all going to be OK. But I have to say it to myself as well. But we’ve got no stability and could be thrown out in two months’ time.”

Stephen Cowan chaired the independent private rented sector commission and is leader of Hammersmith and Fulham council