The Institute for Fiscal Studies has waded into one of the most politically charged debates in UK housing policy, publishing a sober assessment of whether rent controls actually deliver on their promise of affordability. Its conclusion, consistent with decades of international economic research, is uncomfortable for advocates on both sides: rent controls can suppress rents for sitting tenants in the short term, but they reliably shrink the overall supply of rental homes, discourage maintenance and new investment, and often benefit incumbent renters at the direct expense of those trying to enter the market. For a housing system already straining under a chronic supply deficit, this is not an academic footnote — it is a direct challenge to policies being seriously considered in Scotland, Wales and parts of London.