,
Labour's Shadow Levelling Up & Housing
Secretary, responding to the Prime Minister's speech
this afternoon on housing, said:
“This speech was yet more evidence that the Prime Minister and
his tired government are out of ideas. You can’t solve a housing
crisis with back of the envelope policies that have no realistic
chance of success.
“Every family deserves the security of their own home, but under
the Conservatives housing has become more insecure and
unaffordable. Homeownership rates have plummeted. Nearly 200,000
socially-rented homes have been sold off. The impractical
proposals announced today will do nothing to fix that.
“We need a government that shares the enormous ambition we have
for ourselves, our families, and our communities – a government
that will invest, grow the economy, get money back into people’s
pockets, and back its people in every part of the
country.”
Ends
Notes to editors:
- Polly Neate, the Chief Executive of housing charity
Shelter, said: “The Prime
Minister’s housing plans are baffling, unworkable and a
dangerous gimmick.”
-
-
Giving local people and first-time buyers first dibs on new
developments is an idea first announced by the Labour Party
in September last year. Once again, Labour is leading the
policy ideas, and the Tories follow.
-
The number of new homes for affordable homeownership has
fallen by 95% since 2010 – MHCLG, Additional affordable homes
provided by tenure, England, November 2021, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-affordable-housing-supply
-
According to analysis by Shelter, less than 5% of stock sold
on Right-to-Buy so far has been replaced. The programme has
never managed to replace social homes like for like. Over
190,000 homes in England have been lost since the Tories came
to power in 2010.
-
was himself concerned
about the selling-off of housing stock a few years
ago: https://twitter.com/PeteApps/status/1534798380983013376?s=20&t=6sJrXY-tl3k5w30nArxk2g
-
A Right-to-Buy pilot scheme launched in 2018 found that many
promised replacement homes were not built, and many of those
that were were smaller and less affordable than the houses
they replaced: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jun/08/boris-johnson-is-unlikely-to-match-thatchers-right-to-buy-revolution
-
It’s not at all clear how the Prime Minister’s proposal to
allow people to use benefits to pay mortgages is meant to
work in practice, or if it even has support from major
lenders.
-
In addition, claimants of universal credit will stop
receiving the benefit if they have more than £16,000 in
savings. Assuming a deposit of 10%, this cap on savings would
mean lots of houses would still be out of reach.
