In a letter covering the state of the private rented sector to Parliament's Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, Housing Minister Felicity Buchan MP advised that there appear to be 260,000 fewer PRS households today than 5 years ago. She also advised the committee that, in relation to selective licensing, the Government doesn't collect data on the income derived by local authorities from housing enforcement activity.

In her letter, the minister made the caveat that "understanding what is happening in the sector is complex and there are multiple causes for changes. Our analysis is also complicated by limitations to English Housing Survey data collection due to the pandemic". She went on to accept that "demand is currently outstripping the supply of properties available to let. The reasons for this are difficult to disentangle ...".

Of the latest housing survey data suggesting that there were 260,000 fewer PRS households the minister said that it was believed that this this did not represent a reduction in PRS housing stock but rather it was "due, at least in part, to household formation and behaviours during the pandemic" for example, adult children, previously living in the PRS, moving back in with parents or multiple households "bubbling up" during the covid pandemic.

Answering the committee's request for further information on the cost of selective licensing nationwide and the income derived from enforcement fines the minister said that because DLUHC doesn't collect data on local authority income from fines "we therefore cannot confirm how much is raised nationally" and that such income varied significantly from authority to authority. She pointed to recent departmental funding of "enforcement pilot projects with local authorities: among the aims of these pilots is to trial ways in which authorities can use an initial investment in targeted enforcement to generate more income from fines and adopt an increasingly self-financing model for PRS enforcement" which will be shared nationally as best practice so as many authorities as possible can adopt the approach.

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