Twenty ways to deliver on Labour’s opportunity mission by making student housing better

Imagine if we had a proper student housing strategy – one that both had a package of rights suitable for students, and intervened to create places to live that supported their ambitions when studying.

It’s not so far-fetched. It’s easy to blame the wider issues of supply in the private rented sector for all the ills facing the student housing market – but at least lots of other countries have a plan.

And on the basis that the new government is busy with a proper strategy to deliver its promised 370,000 new homes, it’s not hard to argue that that plan should consider student accommodation specifically – especially when reform of it is supposedly “central to its opportunity mission” so that “all have the chance to achieve their potential”.

There’s a bunch of ideas here that are neither England-specific nor out of the realms of reality – given I’ve nicked many of them from other countries. Plenty could be amendments to England’s Renter’s Rights Bill and Scotland’s Housing Bill. You may have ideas too – do add them in the comments below.

Nothing goin on but the

Take rent. Controls on it are usually fiercely debated – and are not a feature of the new Renters Rights Bill in England. But there’s a good reason why I think they should apply to anyone renting to students.

Students have a fixed amount of money they can rely on in the loan system – and the amount that international students have to demonstrate they have has now been harmonised with that maximum domestic loan.

As such, I don’t think anyone should be able to charge more than a fixed percentage of the maximum maintenance loan.

If that causes supply issues, the government can either increase the loan, or reduce student numbers. But not increasing the loan and growing student numbers makes living away from home at university unaffordable. So it has a duty to exert this level of control.

If it doesn’t the only morally justifiable position is that it commits to always loaning students enough to cover growing rent – and it won’t do that.

What about rich people who want a better place? Tough.

We have a situation right now where we cap tuition fees but don’t put much regulation in on what you get for the fees. The opposite would be seen as ridiculous.

Yet we will soon have a situation where we don’t cap rent but will have better regulation on what you get for it (via a Decent Homes Standard). The opposite would be seen as ridiculous.

Neither of these two diametrically opposed ways of thinking about supply and cost make any sense on their own, let alone when combined into a single situation for students.

My view is dead simple. Both of those areas involve a need for minimum standards and maximum charges, because the subsidy is seen as education expenditure (over which the state has an interest in students living comfortably and getting good value for the subsidy) and also has an interest in limiting the amount of loan making and subsidy that it is morally responsible for.

Supply-side reforms

Then take supply. Plenty of students struggle to find somewhere to live. When they do it’s often miles from campus – harming their ability to build networks and come to campus. Those properties are often astonishingly expensive, poorly maintained and riddled with black mould. A living room? Converted into two extra tiny bedrooms a decade ago to fund their landlord’s jaunts to Magaluf.

The Office for Students (OfS) has recently been bragging that it intends to address the issues that students raise where it doesn’t have direct powers – with housing often top of that list. But it both does have powers and should have more.

If we consider it pretty essential that students will be able to rent somewhere that’s affordable, of a reasonable distance from campus and of a reasonable quality, it’s not unreasonable to ask universities to take that into account when recruiting. It’s something that Universities UK already suggests universities do in its guidance – yet I still hear of it not happening in any kind of systematic way across the UK.

It should be a duty on a university to have a reasonable assumption that a student it recruits living away from home will be able to access a home with those three basic conditions above. You don’t invite 300 people to a wedding reception if there’s only space for 100. Universities shouldn’t be able to either.

And if Universities UK’s guidance to universities on these issues is “good practice”, why isn’t it a condition of registration? Why should a university be able to not do the things suggested?

Tackling the issues

There’s plenty of other things that should be done. Right now, to get around international students not having a guarantor that landlords can rely on, they get away with charging then 6 or 12 months’ rent upfront.

That’s money that’s very difficult to find – and is a sneaky way of evading other protections on deposits in the Tenants Fees Act. Landlords should be banned from charging more than a month’s rent upfront – and banned from discriminating against students on the basis of their nationality when they do rent. The former is in the Bill in England but will be lobbied against hard by the landlord lobby.

In the proposed Renter’s Rights Act, landlords will be able to evict students over the summer to ensure supply for the next academic year. But for some students, this is not appropriate – for example because they have local ties or a family to support.

It is important that students have the same opportunity to live in a secure home and challenge poor standards as others in the PRS. Therefore, students renting in the general private rental market should be included within the reforms, maintaining consistency across the PRS.

The above two paras aren’t my words – they’re the words of the last Conservative government, at least until the landlord lobby got at them. To its list of “certain students” I’d add care-experienced students, January starts, PGRs, students attempting to survive on the graduate route and those who just want to stay on in a property into next academic year.

Why should student tenants have less rights just because they rent in part of the market where there is high demand? If we followed that logic, we’d remove all rights from anyone renting in London. All renters should have the same rights to stay on.

Put the joint down

Plenty of students are in joint tenancies – ideal for a landlord who wants to reduce the risks of students not paying. But in a world that’s coming without fixed-term tenancies, that means that the sole student able to trigger the bringing of that tenancy to end could cause chaos for others they rent with.

This is dead simple – don’t water down the individual right to end a tenancy, just ban joint tenancies. And significantly strengthen the rights to deny a landlord the ability to entry or carry out repairs whenever they seemingly want to. It might often be temporary, but this is someone’s home we’re talking about here.

If all tenants are to be given the right to cancel a contract on two months (as they will be in the Renter’s Reform Bill), that should obviously also apply to those in (private or university-run) halls – but those in those buildings are currently to be denied that right, along with a raft of others like Ombuds access.

This is also dead simple – ban the use of “licences” that offer wafer-thin protection for “consumers”, and just apply new periodic tenancies to all. That’s what’s going to happen for those in private registered providers (PRPs) of social housing (typically housing associations), providers of supported accommodation, and providers of temporary accommodation to homeless households. So why not students?

Often in a house share, students are lured in on “all-inclusive bills” deals, only to find that an acceptable use policy (written in tiny writing) would allow them to heat their home for about a day a month. That’s partly because their homes are so energy-inefficient – with no incentives to improve them given the cost and ability to pass on charges to students.

All inclusive bills deals should also be banned – and much tougher energy efficiency standards should apply.

Another issue that comes up all the time in the casework is landlords charging students for things at the end of a tenancy when handing back partial deposits – things that, it turns out, the landlord doesn’t actually spend the money on for the next tenants. That’s a practice that should be banned too – with tenants given the ability to fix any issues identified at the end of the tenancy themselves, rather than by their landlord.

And so many students are now required to sign contracts for 52 weeks when they don’t need a property for the whole academic year. As is now the case in the Republic of Ireland, that practice should be banned in halls too – whether or not those in halls gain the right to exit on two months notice, or at the very least always be able to opt for a shorter fixed term if they need it.

When housing goes wrong

Things are going to go wrong – they always do. A new tenants’ Ombuds is a great idea – but given the average length of time that a student stays in a tenancy, they’ll need some guarantees on their complaints being addressed in a timeframe that’s reasonable in relation to the academic year, not the average for tenants in general.

When it comes to engagement in decision-making, we require education providers to have structures that give students a voice. These should statutorily apply to those running “Purpose-Built” student accommodation too, in both the university and privately operated sectors.

And given we also fund students’ unions to provide advocacy and support for vulnerable students when they have a complaint about a university, we should also guarantee access to a dedicated student tenants rights service, either by funding the SU to do it or by creating some basic shared capacity around key student towns or cities.

When offering a property, it will be illegal for landlords and agents to discriminate against prospective tenants in receipt of benefits or with children. In the student part of the market, it’s international students that face those sorts of slammed doors. They should be specifically listed as a group in that discrimination list.

A landlord in the private rented sector can’t fine someone for “bad behaviour” – the tenant’s fees act rules it out – so how universities and private PBSA are getting away with it is beyond me. Rules around reasonable adjustments should both apply and be enforced in the off-street housing market – given how many students are disabled.

And if landlords can continue to offer smaller rooms for students than everyone else, they shouldn’t be able to get away with tiny kitchens, not offering a communal space other than the kitchen, or bedrooms without a desk. It’s not as if there’s acres of space on campus – and that’s often miles away anyway.

Lots of students struggle to find a guarantor for their rent – universities should be required to be it. In fact over time I can’t see why universities or local structures they collaborate on with SUs can’t be mandated to become “parent tenants”, subletting bedrooms to students. The David student versus the Goliath of a buy-to-let landlords with a portfolio of properties is a crucial imbalance that should be tackled.

And instead of SUs having to operate a “check your contract” service, there should just be a standard one for all student tenants. Obviously.

Widening the protections

There are other protections. In Denmark, tenants have the right to make improvements or renovations to the property. In the Netherlands, tenants can quickly request inspections if they believe their accommodation is substandard. Both France and Germany have strong laws around energy efficiency, and in Germany, tenants can be entitled to rent reductions if the property is not energy efficient or if the landlord has not complied with energy-saving regulations.

In Norway, tenants have guaranteed access to rent tribunals that are designed to handle disputes over rent increases, in Germany tenants are entitled to rent reductions or even temporary rent-free periods if major renovations are carried out that make parts of the property unusable, and in Belgium, furnished properties are subject to strict regulations concerning the quality and condition of the furnishings. Why not here?

A longer-term strategy on supply would incentivise providers to borrow to build on great terms – as long as affordability is built into the heart of any new schemes. National data and monitoring is needed to underpin a national student housing strategy too – perhaps a dedicated office could look after that. You know – an office, say, for students. It’s effectively what Augar proposed until the last government ignored him.

A proper strategy would likely include stimulating supply of and protection for tenants living in “digs” – renting a room in a family house. At some stage we’ll work out what to do with all that empty retail in towns and cities – converting into student housing will make sense.

But on that, the chronic lack of community facilities for students in those cities is a real problem that’s ignored by local authorities, used to “othering” students and assuming the campus can cover the common rooms. Living in towns and cities is not just about bedrooms and formatted dining.

But will that restrict supply?

Many will argue that supply would be hit by reforms like this – even though the evidence for those claims is shaky. But why should a lack of supply cause us to deny rights to individuals? As I say, if we did that, we’d remove all tenants rights from those living in London – and we’re not about to do that. Hopefully.

And there are those that will argue that all of the above is unworkable, and to the extent to which I’ve proposed that OfS or universities intervene, not appropriate.

But right now student loan outlay and subsidy is considered education expenditure. If both the taxpayer and students deserve value for money from their education, they deserve it from the housing they’re renting to experience that education too.