UK Homelessness Minister Resigns Amid Allegations of Tenant Evictions and Rent Hikes
Britain’s Minister for Homelessness, Rushanara Ali, has resigned following reports that she evicted tenants from a property she owns and then increased the rent by hundreds of pounds.
In her resignation letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday, the junior housing minister insisted she had complied with all legal requirements “at all times” in her role as a landlord.
According to The i Paper, Ali, who represents Bethnal Green and Stepney in Parliament, evicted four tenants from her four-bedroom East London property last year while attempting to sell it. Listed at £3,300 ($4,433) a month, the property was re-let weeks later at £4,000 ($5,374) after no buyer emerged.
Ali has previously spoken out against “unreasonable rent increases” and the exploitation of tenants. In her letter, she maintained that she had taken her duties seriously and that “the facts demonstrate this.” However, she acknowledged that remaining in the role risked distracting from the government’s work.
“I am proud to have contributed to the change this government has delivered in the past year,” she wrote, citing record investment in social and affordable housing and nearly £1 billion in funding to combat homelessness and rough sleeping.
The end of rental contracts is one of the leading causes of homelessness in Britain. Starmer’s government is preparing a Renters’ Rights Bill to ban “no-fault” evictions and prevent landlords from re-listing a property at a higher rent within six months of evicting tenants.
Ali becomes the fourth Labour minister to resign under pressure, following the recent departures of Transport Minister Louise Haigh, Anti-Corruption Minister Tulip Siddiq, and Junior Health Minister Andrew Gwynne for unrelated matters.
The wave of resignations has dealt a political blow to Starmer’s administration, which is now trailing Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party in opinion polls — barely a year after Labour’s landslide election win.
A June poll by YouGov suggested Reform UK could win 271 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons if an election were held now, leaving Labour in second place with 178 seats.
Opposition Conservative Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake accused Starmer of presiding over “a government of hypocrisy and self-service.”
