Labour have announced a ‘New Deal’ to fix the UK’s housing crisis, including a promise to build 100,000 ‘genuinely affordable’ homes a year by 2022.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and shadow secretary of state for housing John Healey have launched ‘Labour’s New Deal on Housing’, which they promised would ‘give priority to those let down most by failings in the housing market’.
They said the ‘deal’ would help first-time buyers on ordinary incomes.
It includes 100,000 new discounted FirstBuy Homes, a two year stamp duty holiday for first-time buyers, and an extension and re-focusing of Help to Buy so that it is only for first-time buyers.
Labour would oversee the ‘biggest council housing programme in over 30 years’, they said, with 100,000 genuinely affordable homes a year by the end of the next Parliament.
Mr Corbyn and Mr Healey also said they would help private renters with a ‘consumer rights revolution’, including three-year tenancies, an inflation cap on rent rises, and new minimum property standards.
‘Labour will usher in a new era in council housebuilding to build more council homes than at any time for over 30 years so that the broken market is fixed to provide homes for the many, not investment opportunities for a wealthy few,’ said Mr Corbyn.
He added: ‘Labour offers a New Deal on housing between the people of this country and a new Government.
‘It is a bold, long-term plan for housing to help those being let down most by a broken housing market and failing Conservative policy – young first-time buyers, private renters and people needing new social rented homes.’
