If food prices had risen like rents since 1988, a block of cheese would cost £20

Imagine paying £12 for a dozen eggs, £20 for a 500g block of cheese, and £23 for a chicken. If the food prices had risen at the same rate as private rents since 1988, this would be the reality of your weekly shop,

New analysis from Generation Rent showed the surge would see a standard 10-item shop cost more than five times what it does now.

At £1,442, the average monthly rent in England is 13 times higher at present than it was in 1988 (£111). If the cost of a standard 10-item grocery shop had risen at the same rate, it would cost (on average) £117.13, compared to £22.67 now and £9.01 in 1988.

“We wouldn’t accept paying such extortionate prices for our food shop, so why do we accept it when it comes to our homes?” said Holly Williamson, chief executive of Generation Rent. “High rents are backbreaking for renters across the country.”

1988 was the last point at which England had a system of rent regulation. The 1965 Rent Act had brought in regulated tenancies with long-term security and rents set by independent rent officers, but the 1988 Housing Act scrapped all that, clearing the way for rents to be set by whatever the market would bear.

By 1990, average market rent had already jumped 82% on the 1988 figure, to £202 a month. Since then rents have gone up sevenfold – nearly three times the rate food prices have grown.

A pack of 12 eggs cost 95 pence in 1988, and costs £3.31 today. If it had risen in tandem with rent, it’d set you back £12.35. A 500g block of cheddar would cost £19.50 instead of £4.31, while a whole chicken would be £23.79 rather than £3.78. A kilogram of bananas would cost £13.78 (instead of £1.02 today), a loaf of white bread £6.76 (instead of £1.40) and a pint of milk £3.38 (instead of 65p).

The new analysis comes just days after the Office for National Statistics released the latest monthly rent statistics.

UK-wide, private rents climbed 3.3% year-on-year to £1,388 a month, ONS figures show, with England averaging more than £1,400.

Kensington and Chelsea remains the priciest spot in the country to rent, at £3,596 a month, while Oxford tops the table outside the capital at £1,961.

Around 1.2 million private rented households have reported finding it difficult to pay rent, according to the English Housing Survey.

Generation Rent is calling on Andy Burnham’s government to introduce a cap on rent increases, limited to whichever is lower out of CPI inflation or wage growth.

According to research released yesterday by flatshare site SpareRoom, 85% of renters said they strongly or somewhat supported rent controls or caps.

As Burnham enters 10 Downing Street, there have been calls for the new prime minister to consider taking action to limit rents as part of a package to help Brits with the cost of living.

Burnham has promised “the biggest council housing programme since the post-war period.”

It was welcomed by campaigners, but in the short-term won’t offer much relief to cash-strapped renters.

Read more:

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“The cost of renting is like a runaway train with no driver, leaving too many renters as passengers with no control over our lives,” said Williamson. “With another spike in inflation looming, Andy Burnham’s government can and must act urgently, by bringing in a limit on how much landlords can hike our rents.”

Darren Baxter, principal policy adviser at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said that “unaffordable private rents aren’t a given.”

“They’re a symptom of a housing system that has let private profit come before decent, affordable homes, with successive governments failing to tackle the problem,” he continued. “Trapped in a cycle of high rents, financial strain and no ability to save – renters are often just one redundancy or illness away from a crisis.

“We need this government to ease the pressure on private renters by introducing rent controls. This would put money back into renters’ pockets so they can start to rebuild their financial safety net and weather life’s challenges.”

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