Sadiq Khan pledges to ‘put rent control back on agenda’ as Londoners ‘pay through the nose’ for property

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has said he will write to the housing minister on the issue. Photograph: City Hall

Sadiq Khan has vowed to put rent controls back on the agenda.

The Mayor of London reaffirmed his commitment to the issue last week, telling Hackney Green councillor and London Assembly Member, Zoë Garbett, he would write to the housing minister, Matthew Pennycook, on the subject.

Garbett said the government has not been lobbied on this issue and urged the mayor to ask for the powers to bring in rent controls. She also asked to fund unions specifically to support London’s 2.7million private renters.

The government previously confirmed it “has not received direct representations from the Mayor of London or Mayors of other Strategic Authorities in respect of rent controls, and we have not discussed their introduction at a local level.”

According to Zoopla, the average monthly rent in London in April 2024 was £2,121. At the time, Hackney was the ninth-most expensive borough in the capital, with an average rent price of £2,332 per month.

The most expensive was Kensington and Chelsea, where the average price of rent was £3,459, while Bexley was the cheapest at £1,520 on average.

This is still higher than the UK average, which the online property portal said was £1,320 per month in December 2025.

Rent controls are not a novel concept. In Berlin, the Mietpreisbremse (rent brake) means landlords cannot charge new tenants more than 10% above the local reference rent (Mietspiegel).

Newly-elected Mayor of New York Zohran Mamdani also vowed to ‘freeze the rent’ in the Big Apple. On his transitional website, Mamdani vowed to “use every tool available to bring down rent, create world-class public transit, and make it easier to raise a family”.

Garbett said: “Londoners are paying through the nose on rent, keeping a roof over our heads is gobbling up more than 40 per cent of wages and prices keep rising – renters need more support, it’s that simple.

“Rent controls should be at the top of the agenda and pleased the Mayor will now take this urgent issue to [the] government today.

“While funding has been made available to some great organisations the missing piece of the puzzle is supporting renters unions – these are often member-funded, grassroots organisations doing frontline work for people being crushed by the private renter sector.

“The Mayor made important commitments to London renters – I will continue to hold him to them.”