Britain’s homelessness minister increased the rent on a house she owns by hundreds of pounds, allegedly “within weeks” of the previous tenants’ contract ending.
The i Paper reported that four tenants who rented a house owned by Rushanara Ali in East London were sent an email last November giving them four months’ notice that their lease would not be renewed.
It says the property was re-listed shortly after the tenants moved out, at a rent that was £700 a month higher.
Ali is Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Homelessness and Rough Sleeping. A spokesman said: “Rushanara takes her responsibilities seriously and complied with all relevant legal requirements.”
A source close to the homelessness minister said it had been a fixed-term contract and that the house had been put up for sale while the tenants were there.
They said the tenants had been told they could stay on a rolling basis while the house was on the market, but they had chosen to go.
The i Paper said it had also been told the house was only re-listed as a rental because it had not sold.
The property in question was put on the market in November 2024 with an asking price of £914,995 but was reduced in February by £20,000.
Ben Twomey, chief executive of campaign group Generation Rent, said: “These allegations are shocking and a wake-up call to government on the need to push ahead as quickly as possible to improve protections for renters.
“It is bad enough when any landlord turfs out their tenant to hike up the rent, or tries their luck with unfair claims on the deposit, but the minister responsible for homelessness knows only too well about the harm caused by this behaviour.”
Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty said: “Rushanara Ali’s position surely cannot be tenable. She must resign.”
Asked about the Ali’s actions, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “I don’t know any of the the details of this but I understand she has followed all the rules in this case.”
According to her parliamentary register of interests, Ali owns three properties in London, one of which is co-owned with a family member.
The government’s Renters’ Rights Bill, which is in its final stages in Parliament, will ban landlords who end a tenancy to sell a property from re-listing it for six months.
It will also abolish fixed-term tenancies and mandate that four months’ notice must be given by a landlord who wishes to regain possession of a property to sell.
The majority of tenants in England’s 4.6m privately rented homes have an “assured shorthold tenancy”, usually for a fixed term of six or 12 months or a rolling contract with no end date.
Currently landlords can evict people in two main ways, either through a section 8 where a reason is provided, such as late rent payments, or section 21 (‘no-fault’ evictions’) where no reason is needed.
According to Ministry of Justice statistics, there were 7,353 no-fault evictions in the first three months of 2025 – a 6% decrease on the same period the year before.
