A new think tank is fundamentally wrong in its analysis of private rented housing, and the number of buy-to-let mortgages is falling, not rising.

The claim has come from the Residential Landlords Association, which is critical of Onward after it called for private landlords to lose all their tax relief against mortgage interest costs.

In its first report, Onward claims that at the end of 2017 buy-to-let lending was above the 2007 peak. In fact, says the RLA, new buy-to-let lending for house purchases has fallen from over 183,000 loans in 2007 to just 74,900 in 2017, a fall of nearly 60%, according to figures from UK Finance, formerly the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

The total number of buy-to-let mortgages, including remortgages, also fell from 339,000 in 2007 to 227,000 in 2017, a drop of a third.

The private rented sector is actually shrinking, with the Government’s own statistics showing that the number of private rented dwellings in England fell by 46,000 in the year to March 2017.

The report argues that landlords are taxed more advantageously than home owners, but the RLA cites the Institute for Fiscal Studies which said that following tax rises imposed on the private rented sector in 2015: “The tax system is not, and was not, even before the recent changes, more generous to people buying to let.”

On the back of what the RLA calls a false assertion, Onward wants further tax increases to reduce investment in new homes for private rent, in the belief that this will help first-time buyers.

It argues that if the country had kept the ratio of privately-rented to privately-owned homes the same between 2000 and 2015, it would have ended up with 2.2m more homes in owner-occupation. However, the RLA says this ignores the question of whether all of these households would have been able to afford a home of their own, especially as house prices rose by 154% over that period.

David Smith, policy director for the RLA, said: “The report is riddled with errors and fails to address the fundamental point that we need more homes to rent, not fewer.

“Rather than coming out with ideological assaults on the private rented sector, we need to reform tax so that it encourages the development of new homes to rent and longer tenancies so that the sector can adequately provide the pathway for tenants to go from renting to home ownership.”