Arts and Design

Revolutionary and eminently doable: our critic on Labour's housing policy


‘A million new homes over the next five years!” The Conservative party’s manifesto pledge was launched with the same triumphant brio as “Get Brexit done!” – with the bluster obscuring the fact that the promise actually represents a decrease in current house building rates.

A million homes over five years is equivalent to 200,000 homes a year; earlier this month it was announced that the present rate of supply stands at 241,130. The pledge also represents a downgrading of the Tories’ previous target, to reach 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s, which they have promised since 2017. “We’ll build even fewer homes than our current pitiful record!” would have been a more accurate announcement.

This headline (non)commitment set the tone for a business-as-usual manifesto as far as housing goes, revealing that solving the crisis has tumbled even further down the list of Conservatives’ priorities.

Reinforcing their position as the party of home ownership, they plan to encourage a new market in long-term fixed rate mortgages (an idea tried by Gordon Brown, which never took off), and provide discounts for “local” first-time buyers. This latter pledge appears to be taking the widely discredited Starter Homes initiative – which promised a 20% discount for first-time buyers – and ramping it up to 30%, under the new brand of First Home. It was recently revealed that no Starter Homes were ever actually built, while the detail of the new policy specifies that the discount “could apply to up to 19,000 homes by the mid-2020s” – equating to less than 2% of the total promised number of homes.

Continuing much as before ... Boris Johnson campaigns in Bedford.



Continuing much as before … Boris Johnson campaigns in Bedford. Photograph: Pool/Reuters

Continuing much as before, the Conservatives will maintain their flagship right to buy policy – the disastrous Thatcherite measure widely identified as the biggest obstacle to councils providing the homes they need to – as well as “evaluate new pilot areas” for where right to buy could be extended to housing associations. More than 1.8m council homes have been sold through the scheme since its inception, around 40% of which are now in the hands of private landlords. Under five more years of Tory rule, this relentless transfer of public assets to private pockets would only continue to grow.

Elsewhere, the spectre of the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission, the curious aesthetic task force headed by Sir Roger Scruton, lingers on in the form of a commitment in the manifesto to “allow residents a greater say on the style and design of development in their area,” with councils encouraged “to build more beautiful architecture”. Through what means, and according to whose definition of beauty, remains a mystery. The promise of building new homes only “in areas that really need them” suggests that pleasing the nimby heartlands remains the priority.

Some welcome measures include an end to no-fault evictions and an idea to introduce a “lifetime deposit” for renters, which moves with you, meaning tenants would no longer have to raise money for a new deposit while waiting for their landlord to return the old one. But, overall, it is a disappointingly meagre menu of half measures, policy rehashes and downgrades on previous commitments. And it is astonishing that there are no new proposals for fire safety after the Grenfell Tower disaster and the ongoing cladding crisis.

Labour would abolish the bogus definition of ‘affordable’ housing, which has been set as high as 80% of market rents.



Labour would abolish the bogus definition of ‘affordable’ housing, which has been set as high as 80% of market rents. Photograph: Ian Francis stock/Alamy Stock Photo

While the Tories seem to be trying their hardest to ensure that housing is not an issue in this election, Labour have unleashed their boldest housing plans yet. Going back to the party’s roots, the manifesto opens with a nostalgic reminder that “in 1945, Labour promised to ‘proceed with a housing programme with the maximum practical speed until every family in this island has a good standard of accommodation’. In 2019,” it continues, “we renew that pledge.”

Harking back to a level of ambition and state intervention not seen since the postwar era, Labour proposes to form a new Department for Housing, separated from the current Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, to oversee a radical programme of council house building. They would abolish the bogus definition of “affordable” housing, which has been set as high as 80% of market rents, and replace it with a definition tied to local incomes. In five years’ time, they promise to be building at an annual rate of at least 150,000 council and social homes. Two-thirds of these will be built directly by councils for social rent, unleashing the growing capacity for house building that’s already returning to local authorities.

It is a conception of social housing that recalls Nye Bevan’s original vision, of a place “where the doctor, the grocer, the butcher and farm labourer all lived on the same street,” forming “the living tapestry of a mixed community.” As shadow housing secretary, John Healey, told the Guardian: “Building on this scale allows us not just to build for the poorest, but to be able to build homes again for those young people trapped in private renting; young families that want to get a start in life that can’t yet afford to buy; older people that may be in substandard homes that need somewhere more secure and reliably costed.” It is housing for the many, writ large.

Harking back to a level of ambition not seen since the postwar era, Labour proposes to form a new Department for Housing.



Harking back to a level of ambition not seen since the postwar era, Labour proposes to form a new Department for Housing. Photograph: Kevin Britland/Alamy Stock Photo

Crucially, Labour has understood that a big part of the housing problem comes down to the structural iniquities of the land market, and so they have also proposed to establish a new English Sovereign Land Trust, with powers to buy land more cheaply for low-cost housing. Developers will face new “use it or lose it” taxes on stalled housing developments to discourage land banking, while the Land Registry will be kept in public hands, and ownership of land made more transparent.

The list of reforms goes on. Abolishing a policy that has seen valuable office space converted into poor quality, “rabbit hutch” housing, Labour will put an end to “permitted development” rights that allows such conversions to happen under the radar – and dodge affordable housing requirements in the process. They also propose a levy on overseas companies buying housing, along with an empty homes tax, giving councils new powers to tax properties that lie empty for over a year. Rents will be capped with inflation, while renters’ unions will be funded in every part of the country. Councils will be given new powers to regulate short-term lets through companies such as Airbnb. It is a manifesto that returns housing to its principle role, as a means of providing shelter and building community, rather than as a vehicle to extract rent and accumulate capital.

And it is all eminently doable. Countering the claims that Labour’s spending plans are pie in the sky, this week 163 economists signed a public letter to the Financial Times supporting their proposals and arguing that the programme of public spending would kickstart growth and raise productivity after a decade of stagnation. There is overwhelming evidence that investment in social housing makes economic sense and pays for itself in the long-term, as the housing benefit bill comes down. Analysis by Shelter has shown that a 20-year building programme would pay itself back in full and provide a return on investment in 39 years. As a report by Capital Economics concluded: “The economic and fiscal case for building new social rent housing is unanswerable.”

When it comes to housing, the choice between the two main parties couldn’t be clearer: continuing the status quo, with a million families on social housing waiting lists while landlords reap ever-higher profits; or a fundamental shift towards imagining a time when affordable, good quality shelter is accepted as a basic human right for all.



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