Candidate calls for ‘Mary Barbour law’ to curb ‘rip off ’ rents

Scotland must introduce “stringent” rent controls to make housing more affordable and prevent landlords from ripping off tenants, one of the candidates for the Scottish Labour leadership has said.

Richard Leonard, who will formally launch his bid to succeed Kezia Dugdale today, pledged that if elected he would campaign for private rents to be set by a national regulator.

The MSP for Central Scotland said he wanted to create a “Mary Barbour law”, after the celebrated activist who led protests against spiralling rents in Glasgow during the First World War.

Mr Leonard’s first major policy announcement in the race for the Scottish Labour lead- ership echoes a similar pledge made by Jeremy Corbyn ahead of the general election.

As one of Mr Corbyn’s key allies in Holyrood, he is hoping to present himself as the radical left wing candidate in the contest, with his rival Anas Sarwar seen as more centrist.

Mr Leonard said he favoured a Dutch-style system, where private rental properties are graded based on a series of criteria such as size, facilities and amenities, allowing a fair value to be set.

Under his plans, a national regulator would assess the fairness of any proposed rent increases from landlords against an index, informed by a range of indicators such as inflation and benefit levels.

Any landlords proposing above-index rent rises would have to justify these to the regulator by demonstrating how the property had been improved.

Tenants would also be able to appeal to the same regulator to have their rent cut if they could show that the condition of the property had deteriorated.

Mr Leonard said the system could be enforced by local councils. Although he accepted that there would be “a cost” involved, he said the benefits would “far outweigh” the disadvantages.