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Labour publishes housing mini-manifesto
Labour has published a mini-manifesto setting out more detail on its housing policies ahead of Thursday’s election.
The document sums up Labour’s previously announced pledges and adds some new promises, including:
- Cut stamp duty to zero for people buying their first home up to a maximum value of £300,000, for a two-year period
- The First Buy Homes, announced yesterday, will be priced so that monthly mortgage costs do not exceed a third of local incomes and will be classed as affordable housing
- To negotiate an agreement to get private house builders building more homes more quickly and provide more affordable homes for first-time buyers in exchange for extending Help to Buy to 2027
- To allow councils to charge a 300% empty homes premium on properties that have been empty for more than a year and ask them to prepare empty homes strategies to bring back homes into use in each area
- To introduce a new Office for Budget Responsibility-style Office for Housing Delivery – an independent auditor of housebuilding projections, delivery plans and progress against government targets
- Strike further devolution deals with metro mayors and other devolved authorities in return for an increase in land supply and clear plans to work with local partners to make best use of public money and build more affordable homes
- Introduce fines of up to £100,000 for those who fail to meet new minimum standards, with fines used to fund local authority enforcement work
- To explore how its plan for 4,000 homes for rough sleepers might develop into a Housing First approach to provide a long-term solution to those rough sleepers with complex needs
It said that by the end of the first year of a Labour government it would publish a new Housing and Planning Bill setting out the legal changes needed for its programme, including new powers for local authorities, updated new towns legislation and new rights for private renters.
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It also said it would have begun consultation on a new generation of new towns, revised planning rules and guidance to support the delivery of more affordable homes through the planning system and removed stamp duty for first-time buyers purchasing properties for less than £300,000 for two years.
The party had intended to publish the document earlier but paused its launch after the suspension in campaigning following the Manchester bombing.
It is available to read here.
LABOUR’S HOUSING POLICY AT A GLANCE
New homes
- Invest to build more than one million new homes
- Establish a new “Department for Housing” tasked with improving the “number, standards and affordability of homes”
- Overhaul the Homes and Communities Agency and give new powers to councils to “build the homes local communities need”
- Prioritise building on brownfield sites
- Protect the green belt
- Start work on a new generation of new towns
- Make housebuilding a priority through a new “National Transformation Fund” as part of a joined-up industrial and skills strategy
Councils and housing associations
- Pledge to be building “at least 100,000 council and housing association homes a year for genuinely affordable rent or sale” by 2022
- Suspend the Right to Buy unless councils can prove they have a plan to replace homes on a like-for-like basis
- Ensure that Local Plans “address the need for older people’s housing”, ensuring downsizing options are available
Homelessness
- End rough sleeping within the next parliament
- Make 4,000 extra homes available for people with a history of rough sleeping
- Safeguard homelessness hostels and supported housing from cuts to housing benefit
Welfare
- Scrap the bedroom tax
- Reverse the decision to abolish housing benefit for 18 to 21-year-olds
- “Reform and redesign” Universal Credit
Homeowners
- Guarantee Help to Buy funding until 2027
- Give local people buying their first home “first dibs” on new homes built in their area
- Give leaseholders “security from rip-off ground rents” and end the routine use of leasehold houses in new developments
Private rented sector
- Make three-year tenancies the norm, with rent rises capped in line with inflation
- Legislate to ban letting agency fees
- Give renters new consumer rights
- Introduce new standards to ensure properties are “fit for human habitation”
Environment and other
- Insulate more homes
- Consult on new minimum space standards and on standards for zero carbon homes
- Keep the Land Registry in public hands
It also said it would have begun consultation on a new generation of new towns, revised planning rules and guidance to support the delivery of more affordable homes through the planning system and removed stamp duty for first-time buyers purchasing properties for less than £300,000 for two years.
The party had intended to publish the document earlier but paused its launch after the suspension in campaigning following the Manchester bombing.
It is available to read here.
