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Labour’s landmark rental reforms have been damned as “rubbish” law which will result in fewer homes, fewer landlords and higher rents. A solicitor on the frontline of the nation’s housing crisis who formerly served in the Parachute Regiment warns the much-heralded Renters’ Rights Act is “up there with the worst” of the most “counterproductive laws of the last few centuries”.

Tim Briggs, formerly the sole Conservative councillor in the London borough of Lambeth, is pushing for the “aggressive” expansion of new towns and housing to cope with the unmet demand for housing.

Mr Briggs, a partner in a law firm specialising in landlord and tenant law, warns that “large corporate investors are increasingly stepping in to buy housing in bulk” as private lords – who have become a “political target” and face unprecedented red tape – flee the market.

The Renters’ Rights Act, which came into force on Friday, has banned no-fault evictions and gives tenants new protections, including banning discrimination against would-be renters who have children or who are on benefits. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation says it means renters will “no longer face the stress of an eviction that could come of nowhere”.

However, Mr Briggs warned of a “regulatory avalanche” that sent a “clear message to small landlords: this Government does not want your investment”.

He said: “When you make providing a service more expensive and riskier, fewer people provide it. Fewer landlords mean fewer rental homes. And fewer rental homes mean higher rents.”

To address Britain’s housing crisis, he said councils should be “required to approve or reject planning applications within six weeks” and called for the restoration of mortgage interest relief and capital gains incentives for investment in housing. He wants to see Labour “aggressively creating the conditions to allow new towns to be built”.

“The Left cannot understand that every beautiful and expensive house that is built helps satisfy a demand that ultimately makes other houses less expensive,” he said.

He urged the Government to consider introducing a British version of a Peruvian scheme so non-profit bodies can “purchase land, build roads, sewage systems and power networks, and then sell individual plots to first-time buyers”.

“Profits could then fund further development,” he said. “The Left’s focus could shift from rights-based lawfare to charities actually helping people on lower incomes get a home.”

Mr Briggs claimed that “in the pantheon of rubbish and counterproductive laws of the last few centuries”, the new act “must be up there with the worst”.

Warning that the new law could make the nation’s housing situation worse, he said: “The Renters’ Rights Act is presented as protection for tenants. In reality it will achieve the opposite: fewer landlords, fewer homes, and higher rents. And in Britain’s already strained housing market, that is the last thing tenants need, and a bitter irony for the very tenants that the Government wants to help.”

Jared Cusack, a Lincolnshire based landlord and lettings agent, shared his concerns, saying: “The Renters’ Rights Act harms the very people it claims to save… This Act will lead to more corporate and business landlords who have no interest in their tenants, eventually driving people to black market rentals, which I can also see are on the rise.”

A Government spokesperson said: “Our landmark Renters’ Rights Act will bring the biggest upgrade to renters’ rights in a generation, while ensuring landlords have the stability and clarity they need. There’s no evidence of a landlord exodus, and good landlords who provide quality homes have nothing to fear from our reforms.”