Debate contribution: New Deal for Private Renters in Northern Ireland

Debate contribution by Mr Timothy Gaston on 24 February 2025.

MLA

Mr Timothy Gaston

Party at the time

Traditional Unionist Voice

Date

24 February 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

New Deal for Private Renters in Northern Ireland

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4813990

Read the official Assembly record

Text

When discussing unaffordable rents and the lack of available housing throughout Northern Ireland, we must consider the causes rather than simply focusing on dealing with their outworkings. The main issue driving up rents is the lack of available housing stock and the lack of new affordable homes that are being built to match current, never mind future, demand. A number of weeks ago, I welcomed the Communities Minister's ambition to deliver at least 100,000 new social or affordable homes over 15 years to meet our housing demands. On top of the potential capital funding and planning permission issues that he will encounter, I question the commitment, if any, that the Minister has been given by the Executive and the Minister for Infrastructure on the investment required for Northern Ireland Water to support that much-needed housing plan. Members will not need me to tell them that, across the Province, there are horror stories of how decades of underinvestment in the waste water infrastructure have left many homeowners living with the consequences. Another issue that is relevant to the matter before the House, although it is not mentioned in the motion or the amendments, is the rapid increase in legal or illegal HMOs. Landlords know that if they evict a good sitting tenant today, they can fill the house with a number of people tomorrow and increase their income as a result. A landlord in my constituency is now buying commercial properties in the town centre with a view to turning them into HMOs, because he can get a better return from an HMO than from a shop. I will touch briefly on another point that the motion does not address directly. Whether the Chamber wants to admit it or not, uncontrolled immigration is a contributing factor to rising housing rents, especially in deprived areas. Last summer, we witnessed some disgraceful disorder on our streets. There were attempts by some, particularly in the media, to claim that pressure on housing caused by immigration was a myth. The data, however, tells us a different story. The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency tells me that there was a net international flow of over 5,000 people into this country in the year ending mid-2022. The lived experience of many of my North Antrim constituents is that working-class communities such as Harryville in my home town recognise that immigration has been a factor in the housing pressure that creates higher rents. The court ruling last year on the Rwanda Bill showed that the protocol opens up the very real prospect of effective immigration controls in the rest of the UK not applying in Northern Ireland. That matter may not be a concern for the majority in the House, but, as Sinn Féin has found in the Irish Republic, the EU's open-borders policy eventually gets unpopular with communities well beyond the confines of the loyalist housing estates of Ballymena that I am proud to represent. I make no apology for articulating their views here today, even if no one else will.

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will respond to the Member by saying that immigration is one of the issues that adds pressure to our housing stock across Northern Ireland, whether or not the Member wishes to admit it. When there is a lack of stock, rents will ultimately increase: that is a fact. Immigration is one of the issues that adds to the pressure on our housing stock: that is also a fact. Unless and until we deal with the factors that cause rent increases, landlords will continue to be driven by money rather than by a desire to provide good houses for their tenants. I am happy to support the motion, but greater focus needs to be put on the cause of rents being driven up rather than on mollycoddling the landlords to keep the prices down. We need to look at the cause as well as the outworkings.

658 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Qualifying Immigration, asylum, race, ethnicity and Travellers

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:01 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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