If Rachel Reeve's best tax option may be to stop tinkering around the edges and pissing everyone off, and simply declare open season on landlords.
There are certainly rick pickings to be had...
The landlord sector collectively rakes in £55.5 billion a year in rent — more than mining and quarrying (£28 billion) and more than three times the amount earned by agriculture.
Unlike other enterprises, however, this cash does very little for the wider economy. Fishermen, for instance, pay National Insurance and invest their profits in local enterprises in the form of wages and supplies. Landlords, on the other hand, put in a lot less. The £55 billion they collect in rent is simply money being moved from the bank accounts of younger renters to the bank accounts of older homeowners — an enormous intergenerational transfer of wealth that creates no new jobs, no innovation, and no productivity.
Rent is Dead Money
When rent is paid by a tenant, that revenue isn't circulated productively. It isn't invested in new firms, research and development, or employee training. It's typically put into savings accounts, property portfolios, or pension funds — wealth hoarded, And this cycle could well be acting as a brake on the economy.
In essence, the landlord class is a type of private tax collector, skimming off revenue from the working population without contributing significantly to the productive economy. Tenants, meanwhile, are trapped in a vice between rising rents and stagnant wages, with no hope of saving or investing.
Economists have for centuries noted that economies dominated by rent extraction — rather than production — will stagnate. As more and more income is directed into property rather than productive sectors, inequality rises and social mobility declines. The housing market, in this sense, is not just unaffordable — it's economically parasitic.
Time for a Landlord Levy?
Dunn's situation mirrors a growing consensus on the left: that Britain's housing model is socially and economically unsustainable. A "war on landlords" might have a militant sound to it, but it could amount to no more than tax reform and equity — requiring those who reap billions in rent to pay their share to the public purse.
Taxing landlords would bring in revenue and serve to shift the economy back toward productive investment.
Final Thoughts...
I've never been a fan of the en-masse private rental sector, it's too much like easy money.... and here's a minority class which only make up a tiny percentage of the voting population... and most of those vote to the right of Labour.
The problem is, of course, that many Labour MPs are themselves landlords, and so it's fairly unlikely we'll see this kind of policy implemented!
Unless the Greens get into power!?!?