Victoria Anne Spratt (born April 1988) is an English housing journalist and documentary maker. Her 2016 campaign Make Renting Fair highlighted the plight of ' generation rent' and succeeded in getting letting fees for tenants in England banned. She speaks at political conferences about the need for security in renting. Spratt has also done work on the mental health

side effect In medicine, a side effect is an effect of the use of a medicinal drug or other treatment, usually adverse but sometimes beneficial, that is unintended. Herbal and traditional medicines also have side effects. A drug or procedure usually use ...

s of hormonal contraception, with her ''Debrief'' investigation Mad About The Pill covered on BBC Radio 4 and

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

. She has appeared as a commentator on BBC Woman's Hour, Daily Politics, Radio 2, BBC 5 live, and NTS radio, and has spoken at political party conferences about the housing crisis. In 2021, she was included on the shortlist for ''

Press Gazette ''Press Gazette'', formerly known as ''UK Press Gazette'' (UKPG), is a British trade magazine dedicated to journalism and the press. First published in 1965, it had a circulation of about 2,500 before becoming online-only in 2013. Published wit ...

'''s British Journalism Awards.

Early life

Spratt grew up in Surrey and attended Oxted County School. She went on to graduate from

Pembroke College, Oxford Pembroke College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford, is located on Pembroke Square, Oxford. The college was founded in 1624 by King James I of England and VI of Scotland, using in part the endowment of merchant Thomas Tesdale ...

. Spratt later wrote an article for

iNews iNews, short for ''Indonesia News'', formerly named Sun TV and Sindo TV, is an Indonesian free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the approp ...

about going into debt after graduating.

Career

Between 2013 and 2015 Spratt worked as a freelance journalist, writing opinion, features and news and reporting for publications including ''The Telegraph'', BBC Magazine, ''The Debrief'' and Broadly. Articles were mostly about politics and women's lifestyle. In January 2017, she began a role as Deputy editor at ''The Debrief''. Spratt's radio documentary ''Generation Right,'' which she wrote and co-presented, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 16 June 2014. The documentary investigates changing political views across generations. Spratt made a short documentary about abortion rights in Northern Ireland for The Debrief, addressing the effect of Theresa May's coalition with the DUP. Spratt's first book, ''Tenants,'' was published by

Profile Books Profile Books is a British independent book publishing firm founded in 1996. It publishes non-fiction subjects including history, biography, memoir, politics, current events, current affairs, travel and popular science. Profile Books is distribu ...

in 2022. James Riding reviewed the book positively for ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'', describing it as "excoriating". The book was also chosen for ''The Guardian'''s "Book of the Day". Spratt began research for the book in 2017.

Activism

Housing rights campaigner

In 2016 Spratt ran a campaign, Make Renting Fair, in her role at The Debrief to highlight the plight of ‘Generation Rent’ which resulted in the Government announcing a ban on letting agency fees for tenants.

Mental health and hormonal contraception

She has also worked to highlight the mental health side effects of

hormonal contraception Hormonal contraception refers to birth control methods that act on the endocrine system. Almost all methods are composed of steroid hormones, although in India one selective estrogen receptor modulator is marketed as a contraceptive. The original ...

, and her Debrief investigation Mad About The Pill was covered on Radio 4 and BBC news. She wrote and co-presented a documentary about the politics of young people for Radio 4, ''Generation Right'', and has written for VICE, Broadly, BBC, The Independent, The Evening Standard and The Spectator.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Spratt, Vicky Living people 1988 births Alumni of Pembroke College, Oxford British housing rights activists English feminist writers English journalists Women human rights activists Writers from Surrey