After seven years of failure, the Tories have no plan to fix the housing crisis says Portsmouth South’s Member of Parliament, Stephen Morgan.
Under the Conservatives we’ve had seven years of failure on housing, from rising homelessness to falling home-ownership:
• affordable housebuilding is now at the lowest level for 24 years
• the number of people sleeping rough on the streets has more than doubled since 2010 and almost 60,000 households were made homeless last year
• the number of new affordable homes to buy which help people into buying their first home has fallen by two-thirds since 2010
• the number of private renters has ballooned by 1.2 million and private rents have risen faster than incomes for many families.
Labour’s ‘New Deal’ on housing will build the affordable homes to buy and rent families across the country need. Proposals include:
• first time buyers will be given support so that more young people can afford a home of their own.
• building at least a million new homes, including 100,000 genuinely affordable homes to buy and rent a year by the end of the Parliament.
• a consumer rights revolution for renters to improve standards, security and affordability for people who rent their homes from a private landlord.
• a new national plan to end rough sleeping, starting by doubling the number of affordable homes reserved for those with a history of sleeping rough.
Stephen Morgan MP said:
“Labour’s new deal on housing will tackle the housing pressures families face: investing in new social and affordable homes to rent and buy, helping young people to buy a home of their own, and ending the scandal of rough sleeping.
This Conservative Government has failed on the basics. They have shredded the safety net for the most vulnerable and continually refused to recognise that housing is a right not a luxury.”
The downward trend of those in temporary accommodation ended in 2011 and now accounts for over 77,000 households.
Stephen added:
“Labour will deliver the security and affordability that has been so conspicuously absent from housing policy under the Tories.
We desperately need to build more social and affordable homes and support those in the private rental sector. Only Labour are prepared to inject the urgency that this issue deserves.”
