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Sir Keir Starmer pledges to ‘change the face of housing’ if Labour wins power
Sir Keir Starmer said there is an urgent need to “reform housing in this country”, in a speech at the Chartered Institute of Housing’s presidential dinner last night.
The leader of the Labour Party has pledged to “change the face of housing” if the party wins power in the forthcoming general election.
In a speech at last night’s Chartered Institute of Housing presidential dinner, Sir Keir Starmer said there was an urgent need to make housing “the base camp for people to achieve their own aspiration, not the barrier that prevents people from reaching the summit”.
“Make no mistake, we need to reform housing in this country,” he said.
Sir Keir’s speech focused on a few central areas where change is needed – reducing homelessness, improving affordability and improving the condition of housing in both the social and private rented sectors.
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He used the speech to outline his core vision for housing – “a country where every person has a safe, secure place that they can call a home, not just grinding, day in and day out, to make the rent every month, never able to plan ahead, no way to save for a deposit”.
“Look around the country – 140,000 children, that’s a record number, who are homeless in temporary accommodation,” he said (a figure that Inside Housing has been highlighting as part of its Build Social campaign, calling on all political parties to commit to building a substantial number of homes for social rent in the their manifestos at the next general election).
“1.6 million children living in freezing houses with mould on the wall or water leaking from the ceiling. Families cramped into unsuitable temporary accommodation. And there is a price to pay for every child who can’t fulfil their potential because they have no home to sleep in tonight.
"There is a cost to the country for every young person who won’t be able to live the life they deserve because they don’t have the housing that they need.”
During the speech, Sir Keir confirmed Labour would extend Awaab’s Law – which will put timescales for social landlords to respond to urgent repairs – to the private rented sector. And he also stressed the party’s plans to build 1.5 million homes over the course of the parliament “so that more than a million families have that base from which they can aspire to greater heights”.
Those plans include “building more social and affordable housing”, he stated. Running through the party’s plans, he added it would “give first-time buyers first dibs on new homes in their areas, and a government-backed mortgage guarantee scheme, reform planning to boost the supply of new homes and create a planning passport for urban brownfield development”, along with building a new generation of new towns.
“We want to get Britain building because we know that the homes of today are the homes of tomorrow. We can’t build a future for our country unless we build the homes that make it possible for people to think about the future.”
