Among other things, my Housing Charter, compiled with the help of constituents, calls for a national register of landlords, a mandatory licensing scheme to improve housing standards; a Living Rent Commission to explore the best way to apply rent controls; longer-term tenancies and the scrapping of letting agent fees; and strong energy efficiency standards to tackle high energy bills and fuel poverty...

Next week I'll be marking Cold Homes Week by highlighting that cold homes cost lives, and redoubling efforts to persuade the Government to properly fund measures to address it.   Using just 2% of the infrastructure budget could mean energy efficiency for half a million low income homes every year, as well as creating over 100,000 new jobs.

Over 5,000 households in my constituency of Brighton Pavilion can't afford to heat their homes properly. As Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on fuel poverty, I’ve highlighted to Ministers that cold homes cost the NHS more than £1.3 billion every year, with children growing up in cold homes twice as likely to contract diseases such as asthma.

But it's not just the quality of our local housing that's a problem.  It's the cost too.

Last week, a report by housing charity Shelter found that a couple with children would have to save for almost two decades to afford a deposit for a home here.

Couples like Helen and her partner. Helen’s lived in the city for almost 15 years. She’d love to buy a home here but can’t afford to, despite both her and her partner being in well-paid work. Rent levels, rogue landlords and insecurity of tenancy agreements has made renting here as a family “an ongoing nightmare”, she said.  Her six year old son has lived in three different properties since he was born. In two years, they’ve faced three rental increases and extortionate letting agent fees.  She describes the experience as a “constant underlying worry because you don't know what is going to happen.”

They’re far from alone.  In my Pavilion constituency almost a third of households rent privately and, while there are many good landlords, similar problems are all too common.

I recently put it to the Prime Minster that, while house prices here have surged by 13% in the last quarter alone, the Government had blocked a wage increase of even 1% for our nurses: how does he expect the Royal Sussex to recruit staff who can’t afford to live in the city they serve?

We must also put an end to the right to buy, with money from current sales reinvested back into new council housing. 

My Housing Charter, compiled with the help of constituents, calls for those things and more, including a national register of landlords, a mandatory licensing scheme to improve housing standards; a Living Rent Commission to explore the best way to apply rent controls; longer-term tenancies and the scrapping of letting agent fees; and strong energy efficiency standards to tackle high energy bills and fuel poverty.

These are the priorities I'm fighting for in parliament - but we need pressure on MPs from all parties to do the same.

Just a few months ago, I backed the Tenancies (Reform) Bill, which sought to protect tenants against retaliatory eviction.  Yet two lone Conservative MPs were able to talk it out – a desperately irresponsible act which saw the Bill scrapped. 

But I’ll continue to do all I can in Parliament to work across the benches and hold Parties to account. And to fiercely, unceasingly, keep decent, affordable housing for Brighton’s renters and would-be buyers in the spotlight until we achieve it.