Speaking at Housing 23 on Wednesday 28 June, Shadow Housing
Secretary Lisa Nandy will set out Labour’s plans to get Britain
building, saying that “there are difficult choices that must be
faced to build the houses we need and make no mistake - we choose
growth.”
With housebuilding projected to fall to its lowest level since
the Second World War, and the Housebuilders Federation predicts a
potential cost of £17bn to the UK economy, Nandy will reveal how
Labour’s approach to housing reform will be fundamentally
differently to the Conservatives, delivering “a refreshed model
of housing building” that will “put social and genuinely
affordable housing at the very heart of our plans to jump start
the house building industry.”
She will argue for more partnership with long term investors
pointing to the “private patient capital ready to be unleashed”
and her belief that the existing consensus, “that treated social
justice and growth as opposing objectives” are “false choices and
we reject.”
She is expected to criticise the 17 Conservative Housing
ministers since 2010 “who lack the will or imagination to take on
a system that is rigged against first time buyers,” as “too
cowardly to take on a land market that inflates prices,” and
having overseen a shift from ‘bricks to benefits’ with government
now spending ten times more on housing benefit than on building
affordable homes every year.
Nandy will also set out the economic benefits of house building,
with a clear message to responsible developers that Labour will
deliver the “transparent, long-term planning frameworks, quicker
decisions and a more stable political environment” for the
construction industry to thrive.
, Labour’s Shadow Housing
Secretary, highlighting long-term flaws in the current
housing market will say:
“A broken market and an absent state is the worst of all worlds.”
Promising instead that Labour “won’t duck the challenge – of
building the number of houses we need - and the right homes”
through the creation of a new generation of local development
corporations, spearheaded by and accountable to communities which
will allow local leaders to play a more active role in
development in their areas.
Responding to critics of Labour’s focus on homeownership, Nandy
will say: “I was astonished by the reaction of some people in my
own party. That this is Tory-lite…. to those people I say you
couldn’t be more wrong…If you want people to have real resilience
in their lives access they need the assets that sustain them…and
you need common assets, like Council Housing which provides a
secure home for life, handed back to be used for the next
generations.”
Ends
Notes
· Housing 23 is Europe’s
largest housing event. It takes place on 27 - 29 June 2023 at
Manchester Central.
· On policy-specific details,
Nandy will say:
· On the Green belt:
“We will be honest about the greenbelt is and isn’t. We will
release poor-quality ex-industrial land and dilapidated,
neglected scrubland to build more housing. A sensible, strategic
approach that ends a decade of potholing on the high-quality
green belt and helps us tackle the housing crisis.”
· On housing targets:
“We will reverse the changes to the National Planning Policy
Framework in December 2022 and reintroduce local housing targets.
Because the decision to abandon them this year was the very
definition of political cowardice. Weakness in the face of
backbench hostility.”
· On land value reform:
“We believe there is a case for reforming rules around compulsory
purchase, removing ‘hope value’ in those specific cases where
there is a clear public interest, and where it can support large
scale development , more social and affordable housing and
increased supply to create growth and prosperity.”
· On First time buyers:
“To tilt the balance of power back to first time buyers and use
the support of the state to help them make the leap into home
ownership.”
Labour plans include giving first-time buyers first dibs on new
houses in their area, stopping foreign buyers buying up swathes
of new housing developments before they are completed, and an
increase in the stamp duty paid by foreign buyers of UK property.
