3%, 5%, 7%, or as you were at CPI +1% - which could mean 12% rent increases for English social housing in 2023. Which is it to be?

The government insists it’s consultation on limiting social housing rent increases is an open one and no decision has yet been made. However, it has made its position clear, that it is minded to implement a 5% cap on social housing rents.

This would involve scrapping the final two years of the current CPI +1% settlement, and the cap is likely to run for two years. When the cap was last scrapped, in 2015, we were just two years into a 10-year settlement, when government opted to require a 1% per annum cash reduction for four years (which equated to around CPI -3%). So, we’ve seen this before.