The government needs a rental revolution if it is intent on ‘levelling up’ the country

While I hope to be reporting the latest new sustainable rental development in 20 years’ time, I fear I will be instead writing about a £1m council flat somewhere, writes Phil Thornton

High house prices are forcing more people to rent, so rents also rise (Getty)

When I started reporting on economics in the mid-1990s, the state of the British housing market was a key part of my news agenda. One of my first stories for The Independent was the shock news that a three-bedroom council flat in the north of the capital was selling for – wait for it – £150,000.

Two decades later and property prices are still on the radar of both the media and the financial authorities, although a one-bedroom second-hand council home on the same estate is now on for sale for £398,500.

This not just an idle obsession – although house prices seem to be a staple for those fabled north London dinner parties – but is a significantly important component of the UK economy.