Seb Klier
Policy manager
Generation Rent
“Labour have the best offer for private tenants – but it’s still too little”
Politicians are still unwilling to take the radical action needed to make private renting an acceptable form of housing, let alone implement the policies needed to solve the housing crisis.
Labour (along with the Greens) put forward the most direct offer for private tenants: three-year secure tenancies, with capped increases on rents and a ban on letting agent fees. Private renters will only feel secure when they have indefinite security of tenure and rocketing rents must be headed off with genuine rent controls – something the Greens have said they’d look at. The Lib Dems would also like longer tenancies, but only by encouraging them – not legislating.
The Conservatives have ignored the need to reform renting and are throwing everything at helping people escape it. Their policies don’t even boost supply sufficiently; merely fuelling demand through the help-to-buy Isa giveaway and extending right to buy to housing associations. These policies do nothing to help private renters with no prospect of buying, but also inflate house prices further out of the reach of first-time buyers.
Most fundamentally, parties are refusing to countenance the investment needed to make housing accessible for all. None of the main parties has a clear strategy to build the numbers of homes the UK requires.
Trudi Elliott
Chief executive
Royal Town Planning Institute
“The planning system must be properly resourced to deliver and the cuts of 2010 need to be rectified”
A number of the parties are pursuing devolution. This should make it easier to get planning to work more effectively in individual cities and counties. Joint working across council boundaries will see homes and jobs delivered in a sustainable way, but strong financial incentives need to be offered to make this work.
We welcome the commitment to greater transparency in the land market and the absence of any plans to overhaul of the planning system again. All parties support more housing but we need a commitment to ensuring the planning system is properly resourced to deliver. The severe cuts of 40% since 2010 need to be rectified.
Matt Downie
Director of policy and external affairs
Crisis
“Too many manifestos leave the flawed sanctions regime untouched”
With rough sleeping in England up by 55% since 2010 and growing numbers approaching their council for help with housing, homelessness is becoming impossible to ignore.
However, while we welcome pledges to tackle homelessness, there is not nearly enough policy that will make things better for homeless people, and plenty of initiatives that will only make things worse.
Whether it is the plans to remove young people’s housing benefit or right-to-buy proposals that will worsen the housing crisis, some suggestions look set to increase homelessness. We are also disappointed that too many manifestos leave the flawed sanctions regime untouched, given the increasing evidence base that this is a cause of homelessness.
The next government must review the single homelessness legislation, reconsider planned benefit cuts and build far more affordable homes if we are to end the scandal of people being forced to sleep on the streets.
Steve Akehurst
Public affairs team
Shelter
“No party has committed to definitely investing in building more social housing”
Whatever the outcome of the election there are some positive proposals coming forward, particularly when you consider that housing issues didn’t even get a look-in before 2010’s contest.
Of the three main parties, the most promising ideas are housing zones and self-build for the Conservatives, Labour’s new homes corporations, and the strong garden cities offer from the Liberal Democrats. Generally, it’s good to see measures on boosting private housebuilding and reforming a market that’s become increasingly dominated by a handful of big developers.
However, the job is far from started, let alone finished. In particular, any moves to further water down developer’s affordable housing targets, or sell off the few affordable homes we have left, are likely to hit those on low incomes hard.
All parties have a record of talking big on housing but not delivering in office – and we need to see more from all political parties on building the affordable homes we desperately need. No party has committed to definitely investing in building more social housing, and this is crucial if we want everyone to have a stable and affordable place they can call home.
Gavin Smart
Deputy chief executive
Chartered Institute of Housing
“All three are weaker on their commitment to affordable housing”
All three of the main parties dedicated significant chunks of their manifestos to housing and housebuilding which represents real progress – housing was nowhere near the top of the political agenda in 2010 and it showed in the manifestos.
There are some positive suggestions which could help address the root of the housing crisis – the lack of supply – including national targets for housebuilding, housing zones and direct government commissioning of new homes.
But all three are weaker on their commitment to affordable housing (in the original sense of the word) and future funding for social housing, which is vital if we want to help more people on lower incomes access a decent home at a price they can afford.
Ultimately what we have yet to see from any of the parties is the joined-up, long-term strategy we need to tackle the housing crisis. As outlined in our UK housing review earlier this year, we need coordinated, sustained action over at least a decade – including putting targets and incentives in place for new housebuilding of all tenures (ownership, shared ownership, private rent and social rent).
James Green
Co-ordinator
Homes for Britain
“We need the next government to publish a long-term plan within a year”
Housing has become one of the key issues of this election. This was reflected in the manifestos with promises of hundreds of thousands of new homes put front and centre of them. We had house building ambitions ranging from 200,000 to 500,000 homes per year by 2020. This reflects a recognition across the political spectrum that we’re facing a housing crisis and that we need to build hundreds of thousands of homes every year if we are to ensure everyone has a home that is right for them at a price they can afford.
At the Homes for Britain Rally all five main parties committed to ending the housing crisis within a generation. The manifesto commitments are a step in the right direction. Now we need the next government to publish a long-term plan within a year of taking office that sets out how they will build on those pledges to end the housing crisis once and for all.
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