In the latest instalment of Policy Contradictions Weekly, Keir Starmer has unveiled plans that are raising more than a few eyebrows across Britain. On the one hand, Labour is championing a new renters’ rights bill, promising overdue protections to the millions squeezed by the UK’s brutal rental market. On the other, the party is now urging private landlords – the very cohort often vilified for soaring rents and exploitative practices – to sign up to a Serco scheme to house people seeking asylum.
The Serco partnership: a curious choice
Serco are one of three private contractors working for the Home Office to provide dispersal housing for people seeking asylum while their claims are being processed. The housing contractor is running the scheme which promises landlords five years’ guaranteed rent paid on time without arrears, full repairs and maintenance, and free property management.
Landlords were invited by Serco to an event at a four-star hotel in the Malvern Hills which was due to take place in May but has since been cancelled by the Home Office. In a now deleted post on X (formally Twitter), the outsourcing giant listed dozens of areas across England and Wales where private housing would be used to house people seeking asylum. Following widespread outrage at the post, the Home Office released a statement distancing itself from it, claiming the list was not a Home Office list and did not represent areas planned for new asylum accommodation but instead was a geographical list of areas covered by Serco at the time they were first contracted, six years ago.
Policy contradictions in a housing crisis
It’s an awkward choreography: a party positioning itself as a defender of renters now offering landlords rather attractive deals to play saviour in a migration crisis. This juxtaposition, in the midst of Britain’s deepening housing emergency, raises difficult questions. With a backlog in Britain of 4.3 million unbuilt homes, it would take 50 years to fill the deficit even if current house building targets were met. And, of course, if large swathes of the houses which are currently available were not being poached by Serco.
To understand why this policy mashup is ruffling feathers, we need to zoom out. The UK is in the grip of a full-blown housing crisis. Years of chronic under-building, rising mortgage rates, and the decimation of public housing stock have created a toxic stew where renters are priced out, first-time buyers are locked out, and landlords – well, they’re still eating.
The private rental sector is under immense pressure. Demand has skyrocketed, supply has plummeted, and the balance of power is widely skewed in favour of landlords. Starmer’s renters’ rights bill, at first glance, seems like a noble correction: banning no-fault evictions, enforcing higher living standards, and giving tenants a smidgen more dignity. But at the same time, inviting those same landlords into a scheme to house people seeking asylum looks like a strategic misstep or, worse, a public relations own-goal.
Balancing humanitarian goals with a potential populist backlash
There is no denying that people seeking asylum deserve safe, humane housing. Currently, most are left languishing in grim hotels at taxpayers’ expense, to the tune of around £145 per night, fueling tabloid outrage and spiralling costs. Starmer’s scheme plans to shift them into private housing – cheaper at around £14 a night, and arguably more humane.
But here’s the catch: in a market where even British citizens are struggling to find somewhere affordable to live, this move is bound to spark resentment. The far-right narrative writes itself: “You can’t house your own, but you’ve got homes for them ”. It’s a combustible combination in a country already teetering on the edge of migration fatigue.
By asking landlords to house people seeking asylum, taking much-needed housing out of the private sector for at least five years, while simultaneously tying their hands with more tenant protection, Starmer risks pleasing no one. Landlords might balk at more regulation. Renters might wonder why the same group getting reigned in is now being rewarded. And the public – fed a steady diet of migration panic – might lash out in all the wrong directions.
Labour needs to be even more ambitious on housing
Starmer’s pitch reflects a wider tension in Labour’s platform: the attempt to look tough on housing justice while pragmatic on migration. But unless this is paired with a serious plan to increase housing supply – massively and urgently – it may amount to little more than a policy two-step: one move forward, two awkward shuffles back.
If Labour wants to fix housing and handle migration with dignity, it needs more than landlord schemes and rental tweaks. It needs bulldozers, blueprints and the political courage to say “Yes we need more homes, and we’re going to build them – for everyone”.
