Given the scale of the housing crisis, and the sheer variety of ways in which it manifests, housing has been a gaping hole in much of the general election debate. We attempt to fill some of this gap by analysing four manifestos’ housing pledges: the Conservatives, the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, and the Green Party.
Of course, housing is impacted by other elements of social, political, and economic policy. However, such wide-ranging analysis is beyond the scope of this article.
Whilst we have provided commentary on the proposals, in most cases, we have not fact checked the claims they contain. Generally, we have stripped out the propaganda and confined our focus to the actions they promise to take if elected to govern or to lobby for if their candidates are elected as MPs.
No surprises
The offers from the four parties will surprise precisely no-one. The more Conservative section and the scant offerings from Labour fixate on supporting homeowners and first time buyers, as well as super-boosting new development.
The Liberal Democrats intend devolving decisions to local councils so that the rights of developers, landlords, tenants and residents become a postcode lottery instead of being determined by national standards. The Greens pay more attention to renters, as well as an inevitable concern for the environment.
The different approaches are most clearly illustrated through their approach to Right to Buy (this is the entitlement to buy your council home at a discounted rate). The Conservatives will make it easier, Labour will review it, the Liberal Democrats will leave entitlement up to local councils and the Green Party will abolish it altogether.
No Radical Movers
What is not on offer is a radical rethinking of decent housing as a human right and acknowledgement that public housing is a social and economic investment instead of a burden on the public purse. None of the parties recognise that it is fundamentally detrimental to society to leave the provision of most housing to private developers and landlords, including housing associations.
And even if private landlords are to be accommodated in the mix, there are no promises to significantly curtail their extensive powers, or make them more accountable to those who live in their properties. None of the parties aim to increase access to justice when things go wrong, or to more robustly regulate developers and landlords with effective enforcement mechanisms to avoid disputes and scandals occurring in the first place.
For the SHAC manifesto, please see here.
The Conservative Party
- New Supply
The Conservative’s opening gambit is delivery 1.6 million homes in England over the life of the Parliament, which equates to around 320,000 new homes per year. There is no figure for the proportion that would be allocated to social renters.
Environmental considerations play second fiddle to development. The legacy European Union’s ‘nutrient neutrality’ rules were designed to mitigate any potentially harmful effects on local habitats, but will be abolished, so construction companies won’t be saddled with such considerations. Land that has been built on previously but has fallen into disuse will be freed up for new development.
The Conservatives talk about ‘gentle densification’ – a phrase to chill the heart – and intend to ‘densify’ around 20 cities in England. This practice is already happening, and involves cramming new buildings onto existing estates and replacing low rise with high rise. It doesn’t happen in the leafy suburbs.
Supporting the construction sector, the Conservatives will force councils to set land aside for smaller builders, and to ease what they term ‘Section 106 burdens’. These are expectations on developers to include plans for infrastructure like transport, roads, and bus routes in projects. Instead, local authorities will apparently benefit from a new infrastructure fund to deliver these services. Councils are warned however that such funds cannot “be spent on community projects that bear no relation to support for new homes.”
- First time buyers
A further set of measures focus on helping first-time buyers. Many restate existing provision, but some proposals are new. The package includes exemption from Stamp Duty for first time buyers, and a higher threshold before it kicks in. Other rehashed policies include Help to Buy, the Mortgage Guarantee Scheme, and plans to allow people to purchase a home with a deposit of just 5% on ‘affordable’ interest terms.
- Homeowners
The Conservatives aim to introduce a raft of measures to protect homeowners from financial strain. Oddly, the promises are just things they will not do, like not increasing the number of council tax bands, not undertaking a council tax revaluation, and not cutting council tax discounts. In other words, things will be exactly the same as they are now.
Also within the status quo, Stamp Duty for non-first time buyers will continue at its current rate, and Capital Gains Tax will only be charged to those selling a home that is not their own dwelling. This latter tax will also be disapplied when landlords sell to their tenants.
The Conservatives do offer a new scheme to help those who want to build their own homes, with simplified planning and support for ‘community housing’, the latter presumably being co-op style developments.
- Right to Buy
While a wide spectrum of academics, housing charities, and campaign groups call for an end to Right to Buy (RtB), pointing to its role in dramatically reducing the number of social homes for rent, the Conservatives plan to supercharge the scheme, giving even bigger discounts to encourage tenants to apply. In the future, they want discounts to rise with inflation. But they will restrict the growth of holiday lets.
- Poorer communities
Crumbs are thrown to poorer communities with renewal of the Affordable Homes Programme which delivers leasehold, shared ownership, and rental properties at full market rates or less. There is no commitment to increase the more heavily discounted ‘social rents’ that are rapidly disappearing from the UK housing scene.
In housing in particular, we have seen much pandering to racist and xenophobic elements. This emerges by way of proposals for ‘Local Connection’ and ‘UK Connection’ tests for social housing allocations.
- Anti-Social Behaviour
One further tenant-hostile proposal from the Conservatives is a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ policy. This will allegedly help landlords deal with anti-social behaviour (ASB) but this rationale is immediately undermined because it applies only to social housing.
No justification is given for this: what if the ASB perpetrator is a private renter or even a homeowner? It has been known. Why are private landlords not required to take the same action as social landlords? Could this reflect the fact that around one third of MPs are private landlords? Could it also feed into the stigmatisation of social housing tenants as representing problematic neighbours?
This flawed approach makes no effort to deal with the often complex nature of ASB, but strives to shift it elsewhere.
Undoubtedly, ASB blights lives and too many landlords are failing to deal with it effectively. However, there is wide potential for abuse of a provision in which three findings of ‘ASB guilty’ would automatically result in eviction.
We know of too many cases where landlords mislabel tenants with the ASB tag in order to restrict the tenant’s access to services. Usually these are people who were being troublesome to the landlord by complaining about disrepairs or inaccurate service charges for example, and a high proportion are disabled suggesting that discrimination also plays a role.
- Leasehold, Renters Reform, and Cladding
Leasehold reform and the Renters Reform Bill were both affected by the general election. Some leasehold reform became law, but renters reform stalled completely. The Conservatives plan to restart both, but proposals have been repeatedly delayed and watered down in response to pressure from the landlord lobby.
The Conservatives plan to introduce further leasehold reform, restart renters reform, and continue with developer-funded remediation programmes to help those affected by the cladding crisis.
- Homelessness
The Conservative manifesto contains a brief paragraph on homelessness, with aspirations to end rough sleeping. This has been the intention of every government for at least the last 20 years. But the detail is vague.
The Conservative manifesto claims that ‘significant progress’ has been made on eradicating rough sleeping but reliable statistical data suggests that this is untrue.
The only exception was during the Covid pandemic when almost every rough sleeper was given accommodation and in some cases housing and health support services. Almost overnight, rough sleeping was eradicated, proving that it can be done. Once the pandemic was over, the additional accommodation and support was withdrawn.
The Local Authority Housing Fund will continue to allow councils to build or go into partnership with housing associations and private developers, and the quality of temporary accommodation will be reviewed.
- Travellers
The housing section closes with another attempt to win over the intolerant voter by promising a crackdown on travellers.
The Conservative Party Manifesto
The Labour Party
The Labour Party’s manifesto has comparatively little on housing, and lacks firm detail. This is worrying considering that they likely to form the next government. Often, ambiguous statements are wrapped around with waffle, for example promising to “implement solutions to unlock the building of homes affected by nutrient neutrality without weakening environmental protections”.
- New supply
Labour aims to deliver 1.5 million new homes over the next parliament, so around the same level as the Conservatives. As with the most manifestos, they give no commitment on the proportion allocated to social housing. The headlines include a ‘new generation of new towns’, and extending urban sites, plus regeneration projects. Labour hopes these measures will help speed up the rate of new supply.
Labour makes reference to social and affordable housing, but only through a vague pledge to provide more affordable homes, and to improve support for councils and housing associations.
- The planning system
Home ownership aspirations will be encouraged through tweaks to the planning system. This includes restoration of the mandatory housing targets set for councils. Mayors will be expected to take a greater role in planning decisions, working across boundaries if needed.
Bottlenecks in planning processes will be unblocked through an increase in planning officers, funded by higher Stamp Duty for non-UK residents.
More land will be freed for development through reform of compulsory purchase compensation rules, and allowing use of both brownfield and ‘grey belt’ land. The latter being lower quality green belt land. Where compensation is awarded to landowners, it will be at a ‘fair’ rate rather than marketable value.
- First time buyers
In keeping with their aim of shoving more people onto the housing ladder, Labour offer to provide a mortgage guarantee scheme and lower mortgage costs. There will also be restrictions on international investors, with preference given to local, first-time buyers.
- Right to Buy
This policy is left sitting on the fence. They will review the level of the discount, but give no indication as to whether they favour abolition, or even reducing the discount to discourage uptake.
The Liberal Democrats
After running through several aspects of the housing crisis and immediate causes, the Liberal Democrat manifesto offers a solution in 25 bullet points. Their target is slightly higher than either Labour or the Conservatives at 1.9 million new homes (380,000 a year) during the lifetime of the Parliament.
- Renter supply and protections
The Liberal Democrat manifesto offers more for renters. They will provide more affordable and social housing, but the desire to get people buying is never far from the surface. One proposal is a ‘Rent to Own’ scheme. This is the existing Rent to Buy mixed with a form of shared ownership. Rent payments would ‘give tenants an increasing stake in the property, owning it outright after 30 years’.
A ban on no-fault (Section 21) evictions is a high priority, and three-year tenancies as the default. They will introduce landlord licensing, alongside abolishing residential leasehold, and a minimal cap on ground rents. All of these would generate a strong backlash from the landlord lobby should they ever look like realistic possibilities.
For those renting in the social housing sector, the Liberal Democrats will proactively enforce clear quality standards and strict time limits for repairs. No explanation is given for confining this just to social renters.
There is a nod to tenant and resident democracy by way of a plan to fully recognise tenant panels ‘so that renters have a voice in landlord governance’. This isn’t explicitly targeted at housing associations, although they would undoubtedly be impacted, but could also cover commercial landlords like Firstport.
- Right to Buy
The Liberal Democrat attitude towards Right to Buy is to devolve the problem to councils and National Park Authorities. They can retain it or ban it, turning RtB into a postcode lottery. This is a cop out.
- General supply and planning
Supply would be increased throughout England with ten new ‘garden cities’, as well as new rules to help expand the supply of rural housing. Councils would be able to buy land more easily and at lower cost through reform of the Land Compensation Act. More of the planning decision-making would be devolved to councils, and they would be given powers to control second homes and short-term lets.
The big new idea from the Liberal democrats is a pilot of ‘Community Land Auctions’ which would allegedly ‘ensure that local communities receive a fair share of the benefits of new development in their areas and to help fund vital local services’.
Land banking will be discouraged. This is the practice of buying land and gaining planning permission, but without a specific intention to build on it in the immediate future. The Liberal Democrats aim to end this practice by time-limiting planning permission. Infrastructure needs must also be met, but there is no indication of who foots the bill.
- Fuel efficiency and cladding
New housing and existing housing will be subject to upgrades to make sure that homes are better insulated and cheaper to heat. The Liberal Democrats also intend to have dangerous cladding removed at nil cost to leaseholders.
- Homelessness
The Liberal Democrats’ manifesto appears to be more serious on ending rough sleeping. Like others, they aim to do so by the end of the next Parliament. Multiple government departments would be drawn into developing a plan which also recognises that rough sleeping is not the only manifestation of homelessness.
Homeless people in temporary accommodation and those at risk of homelessness will have their entitlement to benefits increased by ending the Shared Accommodation Rate cap. There would also be a duty (presumably on councils) to make sure everyone has somewhere safe to stay. The hostile Vagrancy Act will be abolished, and councils funding will be increased for investment in reducing homelessness, as well as providing accommodation for survivors of domestic abuse.
The Liberal Democrats manifesto
The Green Party
- Renters first
The Green Party‘s offer is less fixated on home ownership. Early on, they promise that the rights of renters will be protected. This sounds positive, but renters need their rights extended not maintained at the current level. However, they will ending no-fault evictions and allow councils to introduce rent controls.
- Social renting
Councils will have more say (and funding) to assess local social housing needs, with decision-making powers over sites for new social housing development.
The Greens aim to build 150,000 new ‘social homes’ per year. Crucially, these are promised for social rent, one of the cheapest sub-market rent categories. This would however only reverse the rapid decline in this type of tenancy if government simultaneously stems the loss of existing social rent tenancies. Otherwise, it is a case of pouring water into a leaking bucket.
As can be seen, the Green Party’s supply plans are unlike other parties because they specify the level of buildings to be let at social rent. Their figure cannot therefore be compared to those of the Conservatives, Labour, and Liberal Democrats, who don’t specify tenure.
The Green Party will also protect sheltered housing, which has been gradually de-funded by the Conservative and coalition governments.
- Council housing
As well as measures to increase the stock of social housing generally, there is a bias towards council housing. The Green Party will help councils to provide good quality, affordable social housing, and they acknowledge the importance of planning infrastructure alongside new housing. This includes planning bus routes, cycle lanes, and walking networks to reduce car dependency.
Councils will also be given more powers to buy homes left empty for more than six months, and sub-standard homes. They will be able to purchase them below full market value in order to upgrade them where needed, and bring them into use as council housing.
- Housing quality
The Green Party describe the condition of too much social housing as ‘a national scandal’, but push for improvements by councils and housing associations, rather than recognising the hugely negative role played by the latter.
New funding will be provided for ‘publicly accountable building inspectors and building control officers’ to combat the provision of dangerous and substandard homes. All of these would be an improvement, but still leave too much at council rather than community level.
Their proposals also include ending the requirement on housing associations to competitively bid for the dedicated decarbonisation fund.
- Right to Buy
The Green Party favours ending Right to Buy to protect the stock of existing council housing.
- Energy efficiency and environmental protections
Some of the Green Party’s plans are costed. For example, £29 billion will be invested over the life of the Parliament for better housing insulation and energy efficiency. Of this fund, £12 billion is aimed at retrofitting social housing.
Installing heat pumps and other energy efficient heating systems will receive a £9 billion investment, and a further £7 billion will be spent on keeping homes cool in hotter weather. The Green Party intend to involve communities in planning these initiatives.
Refurbishment is favoured over demolition. Developers and landlords will be incentivised to refurbish homes and recycle building materials where possible.
- Dispute resolution
One of the ideas from the Greens is to introduce private residential tenancy boards as an ‘informal, cheap and speedy forum for resolving disputes’ to head off Tribunal cases. As it sounds like a voluntary arrangement, it is unlikely to deal with the worst offenders, and is most likely to become a second Housing Ombudsman, with few mechanisms to influence or enforce rights and thereby change behaviour.
- Freehold and leasehold
Some support is offered to freeholders and leaseholders to help them access ‘property-linked finance’ to pay for the work needed on their property, presumably to remove cladding.
- General planning reforms
Not surprisingly, Green Party planning reforms focus on reducing the environmental impact of new developments. They will protect the Green Belt rather than building on it, and will require new housing to be fitted with solar panels and low carbon heating systems such as heat pumps. The latter are controversial and have been known to cause problems. New homes would come with a ‘Fairer, Greener Homes Guarantee’.
New developments would be tied to access to public services and green spaces. They also aim to introduce a new charter which would tick several boxes at the same time: protecting green spaces, reducing climate emissions, tackling fuel poverty, and providing genuinely affordable housing.
22 June 2024
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