MP, Labour's Shadow Secretary
of State for Housing, responding to IFS
figures showing low-income households are increasingly exposed to
rent increases, said:
“These new figures are yet another indictment of the Government’s
failing housing policy and their failure to act to help millions
of private renters. The report shows rents racing ahead of rises
in incomes.
“Even admits seven years of
Conservative failure on housing was a big part of why her Party
did so badly in the Election, yet she has no plan to fix the
housing crisis.
"People whose lives are blighted by Britain’s broken housing
market rightly expect Government to act but it’s only Labour’s
long-term plan for a consumer rights revolution for renters, new
discount homes for first time buyers and the big-scale building
programme of genuinely affordable homes to rent and buy that will
tackle the country’s housing crisis."
Ends
Editor’s Notes:
-
1. Failure
on private renting
· The number of
people in the private rented sector has increased by 1.2m
households since 2010. One in four families with children now
rent privately – 1.6 million households.
English Housing Survey 2015 to 2016: headline report, DCLG, 2
March 2017, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/english-housing-survey-2015-to-2016-headline-report
· Average private
rents stood at £874 per month in June and continue to rise – an
average of over £2200 more a year than in 2010.
Your Move Buy to Let index, https://www.lslps.co.uk/news-and-media/market-intelligence/buy-to-let-index/england-wales-buy-to-let-index
-
2. Failure
on building new homes
· Since 2010 with
Conservative Ministers we’ve built fewer homes than under any
political party since the 1920s.
House of Commons library research, September 2016
· According to
government figures the number of homes built in England last year
was 147,930. The government’s own analysis suggests we need to
build 200,000-300,000 homes.
DCLG, live tables on housing building, table 209 Permanent
dwellings completed, 24 August 2017,
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-house-building
-
3. Failure
on affordable homes
· Last year the
Conservatives built the fewest affordable homes for 24 years.
Ministers cut government funding for affordable homes by 60% in
2010.
DCLG, Additional affordable homes provided by tenure,
England, 2 March 2017,https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/570005/Live_Table_1000.xlsx
· The number of
genuinely affordable homes for social rent started last year was
fewer than 1,000, compared to 40,000 started in Labour’s last
year in government.
DCLG, Affordable Housing Starts and Completions, 2 March
2017,
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/572767/Live_Table_1012.xlsx
· Conservative
Ministers have failed to deliver one-for one replacements for
homes sold through the Right-to-buy - instead only one is being
built for every five sold.
DCLG, right-to-buy sales Q1 2012/13 – Q3 2015/16, 16 March
2017, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-social-housing-sales
