Homelessness minister Rushanara Ali is facing calls to resign after claims she hiked rent on a property she owns by hundreds of pounds “within weeks” of the previous tenants’ contract ending.
The i Paper reported that four tenants who rented a house owned by Ali in East London were sent an email in November giving them four months’ notice their lease would not be renewed.
However, the property was re-listed shortly after they moved out, at a rent £700 a month higher.
Tory Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake accused Ali of “staggering hypocrisy” over the handling of the property – but Ali’s spokesman said she “takes her responsibilities seriously and complied with all relevant legal requirements”.
Holinrake said Ali had to resign because she had “spoken out about exploiting tenants, about providing more protections to tenants”.
He added: “You can’t say those things, then do the opposite in practice, as a landlord.”
The SNP’s depute leader at Westminster, Pete Wishart, said: “Once this shameful story broke, Labour’s homelessness minister should have immediately resigned.”
London Renters Union spokesperson Siân Smith said Ali’s actions were “indefensible” and she “must step down” due to a “clear conflict of interest”.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves said she “didn’t understand” why the Conservatives were calling for Ms Ali to resign, saying: “I don’t know the details but Rushanara Ali seems to have done everything in accordance with the law.”
A source close to Ali said it had been a fixed-term contract and that the house had been put up for sale while the tenants were there.
They said the tenants had been told they could stay on a rolling basis while the house was on the market, but they had chosen to go.
The i Paper said it had also been told the house was only re-listed as a rental because it had not sold.
The property in question was put on the market in November 2024 with an asking price of £914,995 but was reduced in February by £20,000.
Shelter’s campaigns and policy director Mairi MacRae said Labour must ” must make good on its manifesto commitment” to protect tenants because renters “cannot wait any longer for meaningful change”.
“It beggars belief that after months of dither and delay, the government’s own Homelessness Minister has profited from the underhand tactics the Renters’ Rights Bill is meant to outlaw,” she added.
Ben Twomey, chief executive of campaign group Generation Rent, said: “These allegations are shocking and a wake-up call to government on the need to push ahead as quickly as possible to improve protections for renters.
“It is bad enough when any landlord turfs out their tenant to hike up the rent, or tries their luck with unfair claims on the deposit, but the minister responsible for homelessness knows only too well about the harm caused by this behaviour.”
According to her parliamentary register of interests, Ali owns three properties in London, one of which is co-owned with a family member.
The government’s Renters’ Rights Bill, which is in its final stages in Parliament, will ban landlords who end a tenancy to sell a property from re-listing it for six months.
It will also abolish fixed-term tenancies and mandate that four months’ notice must be given by a landlord who wishes to regain possession of a property to sell.
The majority of tenants in England’s 4.6m privately rented homes have an “assured shorthold tenancy”, usually for a fixed term of six or 12 months or a rolling contract with no end date.
Currently landlords can evict people in two main ways, either through a section 8 where a reason is provided, such as late rent payments, or section 21 (‘no-fault’ evictions’) where no reason is needed.
According to Ministry of Justice statistics, there were 7,353 no-fault evictions in the first three months of 2025 – a 6% decrease on the same period the year before.
Rushanara Ali has been contacted for comment.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
