LABOUR must go further on rental reform campaigners demanded today as the Renters Rights’ Bill returned to the Commons.

Housing charity Shelter called for the government to limit the amount rent can rise throughout a tenancy and to axe “unnecessary demands for guarantors.”

Chief executive Polly Neate said: “To truly make renting more secure and affordable, the Bill must limit in-tenancy rent increases in line with either inflation or wage growth.

“It must also stamp out the other discriminatory practices, like unnecessary demands for guarantors, that drive homelessness by locking people out of private renting.”

And the London Renters Union urged a new focus on the provision of social housing.

Spokesperson Jae Vail said: “Rising rents are not inevitable. They are a political choice.

“The government must stop choosing to protect landlord profit and start siding with renters.

“It’s clear that a deregulated private rental market will never meet the needs of the millions of families who have no choice but to rent privately.

“The government must protect ordinary people from the threat of eye-watering rent hikes to keep renters in their homes, while we continue to push for the secure council and social homes we need to end this housing crisis.”

Shelter welcomed however an amendment to the Bill to block landlords from demanding more than a months’ advance rent from a new tenant.

Ministers say the Bill will end Section 21 so-called “no-fault” evictions and give renters greater security and stability.

Landlords have struck up a predictable lamentation, claiming that the reform’s proposals “risk making access to rented housing harder.”