Greens to Push for Three-Year Freeze on Private Rent Hikes at Brighton Conference

Green Party leader Zack Polanski will use the opening of his party's annual conference to demand a three-year emergency brake on private rent increases, framing housing as the defining test of generational fairness in British politics.

In a speech to activists in Brighton on Friday afternoon, Polanski is expected to call on the government to cap annual private rent rises at whichever is lowest: the consumer price index measure of inflation, average wage growth, or 2%. The proposed ceiling would remain in force for three years, giving renters what the party describes as vital breathing space while ministers design a longer-term settlement.

The Green leader will argue that successive governments have allowed landlords to push rents far beyond what tenants can reasonably afford, forcing millions of households to cut spending on essentials simply to keep a roof over their heads. According to extracts of the speech released ahead of delivery, he will say that people of all ages — from teenagers commuting to university while living at home, to twenty-somethings unable to take jobs in expensive cities, to thirty-somethings moving back in with parents alongside their partners — are paying the price of an unregulated rental market.

Polanski is expected to present the three-year cap as a temporary measure rather than a permanent fix. Once the emergency period ends, he wants ministers to introduce a national Fair Rents Guarantee that would keep rents affordable over the long term. The party has not yet published detailed costings or legal mechanisms for how such a guarantee would operate, but the proposal echoes rent-control policies the Greens have championed for years.

The timing of the announcement places housing at the centre of a conference that the Green Party of England and Wales is billing as its largest ever. Membership has tripled since Polanski was elected leader just over a year ago, according to figures the party released earlier this year. The gathering in Brighton follows a strong set of local election results in which the Greens gained hundreds of councillors, and the party now holds five seats in the House of Commons after Hannah Spencer's by-election win in Makerfield.

Despite those gains, there are signs that the party's upward momentum in national polling has levelled off in recent months. Conference delegates must also decide how to respond to the changed political landscape under Labour, which has shifted its position on several issues where the Greens had been gaining ground.

Since Andy Burnham became prime minister, Labour has moved towards electoral reform — a long-standing Green demand — and opened the door to a much closer future relationship with the European Union. The government has also announced sanctions on Israeli West Bank settlements deemed illegal under international law and reopened a scheme to resettle refugees. In an interview before the conference, Green co-deputy leader Rachel Millward said Labour was now "rhetorically, on a much more similar ground" to her party. Polanski, however, has claimed that both the sanctions and the refugee scheme resulted from electoral pressure applied by the Greens.

The conference also creates a scheduling dilemma for Polanski. He is standing for the Greens in next week's Holborn and St Pancras by-election, triggered by Sir Keir Starmer's decision to leave Parliament. The central London seat would be the party's first in the capital, but winning it would require overturning a substantial Labour majority from the 2024 general election. Polanski has said he intends to return to the campaign trail immediately after his leader's speech and has urged activists to leave the conference over the weekend to help him canvass.

The rent proposal lands in a policy area where the government has already legislated. Earlier this year, ministers brought in the Renters' Rights Act, under which landlords may increase rent only once a year and only to the property's open market rate. The Act also converted tenancies to rolling rather than fixed-term arrangements and made it harder for landlords to evict tenants. Polanski is expected to argue that these measures do not go far enough to end the fear and uncertainty felt by private renters.

Official figures illustrate the scale of the pressure on tenants. Average UK monthly private rents rose by 3.5% in the 12 months to January 2026, reaching £1,377, according to the Office for National Statistics. That pace of increase outstripped the government's inflation target and, for many households, has continued to outrun wage growth.

Economists have cautioned against the kind of intervention the Greens are proposing. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has previously warned that rent controls tend to produce unintended consequences, including demand exceeding supply in the rental market. Critics argue that capping rents can discourage landlords from maintaining or expanding their portfolios, ultimately shrinking the stock of available homes and making it harder for tenants to find somewhere to live.

Millward rejected that argument in an appearance on BBC Breakfast, saying most landlords are super-earners who generate more income than operators in other sectors and would be able to absorb a slight reduction in rent. Her comments reflect the party's broader position that the housing crisis is primarily a question of distribution rather than supply alone.

The speech is also an attempt to sharpen the Greens' distinctive identity as Labour occupies more of the political territory the party has staked out. By leading with rents, Polanski can appeal directly to younger voters and private tenants — groups that have proved receptive to the Greens' message in recent elections — while drawing a clear contrast with a government that has taken a more gradual approach to reform. Whether that message can convert conference energy into votes in Holborn and St Pancras will be tested within days.