Homelessness minister forced to quit over London rent scandal

0:02Hi, I'm Charlie Duffield and welcome back to the Standard Podcast. If you're new here, hit follow and give us a rating. For all the latest news, head to standard.co.uk. Coming up later in the show, as the aesthetics industry tightens regulations in the UK, it's still a wild west for cosmetic treatments. But first, Labour's Homelessness Minister Rishunara Ali has resigned from government After it emerged, she evicted four tenants from a property she owns before reletting it just weeks later and hiking the rent by£700 a month. Under Labour's Renters Rights Bill, which is likely to come into effect in early 2026, landlords who evict tenants in order to sell their property will be banned from relisting it for rent for at least six months.

0:58In a letter to Keir Starmer, the Labour MP said she had at all times followed all legal requirements and taken her responsibilities seriously. But she added, it is clear that continuing in my role will be a distraction from the ambitious work of the government. Kevin Hollenrake, chairman of the Conservative Party, described the allegations about Ali as a classic case of do as I say, not as I do. But Energy Minister Miata Fambula said Ali had not broken any rules or any laws when asked by Sky News if the allegations about her colleague were a good look. Joining us first of all is The Standards' Chief Political Correspondent Rachel Burford.

1:40Rachel, what was your reaction to this story? It stings quite a lot, I think. As a renter myself, it's quite hard to have sort of sympathy for landlords at the best of times. Who is Roshinara Ali? Can you tell us a bit more about her background and her political life so far? She's actually one of Labour's more experienced MPs. She's been an MP in East London since 2010. She's held quite a few sort of shadow ministerial roles in the government. And then she became a minister when Labour were elected to government last year. She doesn't have a big sort of public profile, I would say. She keeps herself quite quiet in many ways.

2:16The election last year, she saw her majority really plummet. She had a huge majority of about 34 ,000 after the 2019 election. It's one of the safest Labour seats in the country in Bethnal Green and Stepney. But after what was going on in Gaza and the problems that was causing Labour for the last election, she did see a big threat from independent candidates. And her majority dropped a lot to, I think, just over sort of 1 ,500 votes. Locally, she's faced a lot of sort of anger and protest. She sort of abstained on a ceasefire vote about the war in Gaza in 2023. she's seen a lot of sort of protests and has become a little bit less popular say locally in October last year as well she relinquished her building safety ministerial brief and that followed these complaints from families of Grenfell fire victims over her receiving hospitality from building material firms so she's regularly sort of attended this conference that was hosted by someone who had been a chairman of a company that had been criticized in the Grenfell inquiry for supplying flammable cladding she's faced calls to resign she said well I'll drop that over this perceived link.

3:22But she never sort of admitted there was a link or there had been any kind of discussion with these firms. So there was a bit of controversy around her last year for that. And then obviously this now is again, it's something that people can, you know, particularly political rivals can say it's hypocrisy. Essentially, you are the homelessness minister and you're effectively hiking up rents and making people homeless. What else did the tenants who lived at Ali's property say? The letting agents had tried to charge them£2 ,400 for the home to be repainted and professionally cleaned. Landlords are prevented from charging tenants for those services under the Tenants Fees Act of 2019.

3:58Those fees were actually dropped, apparently, Miss Ali's office said. Some ministers have said that she didn't technically break any rules. What do you say to that? The reason I think Rushnara Ali has quit is because it doesn't look good. And it doesn't look good because if you are a tenant and many people who live in rented accommodation, particularly in London, will know how hard it can be to find somewhere and then also to keep the rent at a sustainable level, that they are very difficult things to do. So although she hasn't broken any rules and her office has been very clear that she's not broken any rules, she certainly skirted close to them.

4:33And earlier I also spoke to Annie Cullum, a political officer with the Community and Renters' Union ACORN. So Annie, what was your reaction to the news? We just felt so disappointed and angry. But sadly, I'm not going to say that we're surprised because we see extortionate rent rises happening all across the country all the time. And really for us, it's a real hole in the renters' rights bill. Ali's department is about to bring in legislation to stop the very action that she took herself. What do you make of that? What's more hypocritical to me is the fact that she is a homelessness minister. evictions and rent rises are a key driver of our housing crisis and homelessness and I cannot believe that someone who is in charge of trying to tackle the homelessness problem in this country who's in charge of trying to make sure that everyone has a safe place to live is then doing this to their own tenants in the name of profit.

5:29Tell me more about Labour's Renters Rights Bill and what changes it will implement. So a key part of it is that it's going to end what's called section 21 no-fault evictions. So at the moment your landlord can evict you with two months notice for absolutely no reason and that is going to be abolished and not only will that give people more security in their homes but it will also give renters the confidence to complain about poor conditions. There's other positive changes to the bill including things like stopping landlords from being able to ask for multiple months rent in advance which is pricing a lot of people who are on low incomes or a tight budget or benefits out of the renting market and making it difficult for them to find somewhere to call home.

6:12It's also going to mean that tenancies are going to be open-ended. So rather than signing a contract for say six months to a year with your landlord and not knowing what's going to happen after that year, you can expect to stay as long as you want unless you as the tenant are at fault or in some very specific circumstances such as if the landlord wants to sell up or move in themselves. But even then, Labour is bringing in caveats that we fought for to make sure that those specific circumstances aren't abused and aren't used as a means to just kick tenants out and then put the home on the market again to rent.

6:48The area where the bill falls down is it doesn't do anything to address the real affordability crisis. Rents have far outstripped inflation for years now. We've got a huge proportion of renters spending over half of their income on rent and it's not sustainable and the bill doesn't do anywhere near enough to tackle this. And I have to say that the actions of Ali here really epitomise why we need this. If those tenants wanted to move back into that property, then they probably wouldn't have been able to afford it. And huge rent hikes are breaking up communities, they're costing tenants a ridiculous amount of money, and they're not fair prices.

7:26Finally, what needs to happen to improve the housing crisis in London? What we're really calling for is rent controls as a first step. So because our social housing stock, so our council housing and housing association stock, has just been going down and down in number over the last few decades, that sort of housing isn't available to people. And also because house prices have just gone through the roof. Much greater proportion of people are having to rent privately because they've got no other option. and landlords are taking advantage of that by putting rents up and up and up and profiteering out of a real problem.

8:03So one of the first things we want to see is rent caps brought in that would both stop landlords from being able to raise rent over a certain amount during a tenancy. So I'll give you an example. We've got a member at the moment in Harrow who was having their rent put up by 30 percent and when they said that they couldn't afford it and they wouldn't do it they've now they're given an eviction notice. We also want to see measures to stop asking rents from being so high and stop things happening like the minister did, where they've rented it out for a certain amount, asked the tenants to leave and then put it back on the market for hundreds of pounds more, therefore blocking lots of low-income people out of being able to live in the communities that they've grown in.

8:45But also, in the long term, what we really need to see is mass investment in social housing that is the answer and that will pay for itself in dividends because we've got a situation at the moment where people are struggling to find anywhere in the private rented sector there's nowhere for them in social housing and so they're coming to their council and having to be put up in overcrowded temporary accommodation which is not only not suitable to live in long term but it's also costing councils thousands and bankrupting some of them as well so the answer to this is to invest in secure social housing which is therefore the public good not for private profit like the private rented sector.

9:28Let's go to a break coming up in part two the growing trend of people administering their own backyard Botox. We'll see you back here in just a moment.

9:49Welcome back. The cost of living crisis means consumers are feeling the pinch, but not in the way you might expect. Google searches for Innotox, a Korean over-the-counter Botox that can be purchased online, have increased in the UK, pointing to a surge in DIY anti-wrinkle treatments. It comes as the UK Health Security Agency has issued a warning about practitioners injecting patients with suspected fake Botox after 38 cases of botulism poisoning in England linked to unlicensed Botox-like jabs that were administered between 4 June and 14 July. Reported symptoms include trouble swallowing, slurred speech and breathing difficulties.

10:36So is the reward of a snatched looking face worth the risk? Journalist Arielle Dom has been investigating for The Standard. Why is Botox so popular and where is this pressure and desire to be wrinkle-free coming from? The desire to look young isn't new. But what is new is the colossal amount of time that we're spending on social media. The average Gen Zer spends three hours a day on social media. We're just like confronted with imagery of people with chiseled jawlines and smooth skin, people who have really kind of taught faces. And we also can't necessarily tell who's posting an Instagram picture with a filter, who's edited their pictures.

11:19It's all mixed into one. Since the pandemic, we're spending a lot of the time on Zoom, on video calls. We're looking at the reflection of our own face and comparing ourselves to these very quote unquote flawless, perfect faces. so it makes sense that we would potentially want to look like those people because we're I guess instilled injected with the idea that if we do look like this that we're going to be more desirable we just need to have the money to be able to afford the skims face wraps the salmon semen injections the vampire facials the botox all these things as a possibility that we can make ourselves look more attractive and I think the more time we spend on social media it's a compelling and infectious idea.

12:00So why are people now dabbling with DIY Botox and what are the risks? Korean Botox can be purchased online for under£50, which is substantially less when you think about a round of Botox at a clinic in the UK could be hundreds of pounds. Everything is more expensive. People are looking for other ways to do these cosmetic procedures. There's these colliding factors of the fact that we're spending so much time on social media. We're making it ourselves insecure. We're comparing ourselves to people who have potentially had surgery, they're potentially editing their faces, and then we don't have enough money to afford these procedures ourselves.

12:37There are only six prescription-only Botox brands that are legally allowed for cosmetic use in the UK. So that means that a lot of the products people are purchasing online aren't regulated, which is incredibly unsafe because if a product isn't regulated, you don't know what's inside it. Just because it says that it's something on the label doesn't mean that it necessarily is. One practitioner, Dr. Mike T, a doctor at the Harley Street Skin Clinic, compared it to buying heroin on the street. You like don't know what it's cut with. Botulinium toxin A, the active ingredient in Botox, is a million times more toxic than a cobra toxin and it's more poisonous than cyanide.

13:17Injecting Botox yourself, if you're not trained, is really difficult. Practitioners have a very intricate understanding of facial anatomy and different parts of the face require different concentrations of Botox. So if you're injecting it yourself, you might be putting too much in a certain area and it can lead to things like drooping eyelids, lopsided smiles, even things like paralysis in your face or neurological problems. So there's a huge range of nightmarish effects that can happen if this isn't done really carefully, probably by someone who has for training. What changes have taken place recently in the aesthetics industry?

13:57This is a really interesting moment in the aesthetics industry. In June, a new rule was finally introduced that made it mandatory to have face-to-face consultations before prescribing Botox or dermal fillers. This wasn't necessary before June this year, which is quite surprising. However, even since that rule has been implemented, practitioners and industry experts are still saying that these cowboy clinics run by people without proper licenses is still proliferating and then literally just this week the government announced plans to crack down on dodgy cosmetic clinics so that clinics will now need to make strict rules in order to obtain a license there's also going to be attempts to make it harder for young people people under 18 to potentially be influenced by dangerous beauty trends on social media with age restrictions on receiving certain procedures.

14:48The idea is that this is going to protect people who want cosmetic treatment. And it's also hopefully going to reduce costs to the NHS, who will hopefully be fixing less of these procedures, which have gone wrong. If someone doesn't have the training, and there's a complication, you then will likely have to go to the doctors or a hospital, which is obviously costing the NHS. How this is all actually going to be implemented hasn't yet been announced. So I'm curious what will happen and how they'll manage to clamp down on this kind of wild west of aesthetic treatments. Finally, have you ever had Botox yourself or would you like to?

15:24I haven't had it myself, but I would be lying if I said it wasn't something I think about. I'm 28 and I think in the last few years I have thought about aging and notice how my face is aging. From the current position I'm in, I'd like to think I maybe wouldn't get it because I like the idea of aging and thinking about my appearance less. However, I do wear makeup. I do subscribe to the pursuit of conventional beauty standards in a lot of ways. So I definitely do not judge anyone who chooses to do that. And who knows, maybe that is the pathway I will take in the future too.

16:06and that's the standard for all the latest news head to standard.co.uk if you'd like to get in touch please do drop us a line at podcasts at standard.co.uk we'll be back here on monday at 5 p.m we'll see you then