Labour has launched a new deal for housing – a long-term plan to fix the housing crisis. The party promises to give priority to those let down most by failings in the housing market and in current housing policy.
Setting out more detail on the party’s plans to deal with the country’s housing crisis and build at least a million new homes, the published plan includes:
- A New Deal for first-time buyers on ordinary incomes, including 100,000 new discounted FirstBuy Homes, a two year stamp duty holiday for first-time buyers, and an extension and re-focusing of Help to Buy so that it is only for first-time buyers;
- A New Deal for those 1.2 million on council waiting lists with a huge increase in affordable housebuilding to be building 100,000 genuinely affordable homes a year by 2022, including the biggest council housing programme in over 30 years;
- A New Deal for private renters with a consumer rights revolution including three-year tenancies with an inflation cap on rent rises and new minimum property standards.
After seven years of Tory failure on housing, since 2010 we have seen:
- Housebuilding at the lowest level under any political party in peacetime since the 1920s;
- The lowest level of new affordable housebuilding in 24 years;
- Almost 200,000 fewer home-owners, with 900,000 fewer under 45s owning their own home;
- Rents rising faster than incomes for many;
- More families forced into temporary accommodation, with 120,000 children spending last Christmas without a home of their own; and
- Rough sleeping homelessness more than doubled.
Cllr Stephen Morgan, Labour’s candidate for Portsmouth South, said:
“High prices, excessive rents and the chronic lack of affordable housing are ruining the lives of young people, families and aspiring homeowners.
Labour will ensure 100,000 FirstBuy Homes are available at discounted rates to local first time buyers across the country. This will transform the housing market and put the needs of younger house buyers and local workers first.
Our plans will usher in a new era of housebuilding to build more council homes than at any time for over 30 years so that the broken market is fixed.
I welcome this new deal which will have a positive impact here in Portsmouth. It’s time we see the provision of homes for the many, not investment opportunities for a wealthy few.”
