Homes4people

From the office of Rt Hon John Healey, Housing Minister

Foreword: Housing at Labour’s Heart

Housing is at Labour’s heart. We are the party that believes everyone should have a secure, decent and affordable home. This is a measure of a good society and the type of society Labour aspires to build.

Housing is also one of the biggest challenges that we face as a country. Britain has still large and unmet housing need, with too many people living in overcrowded, poor quality or unsuitable homes, especially in our cities. High house prices, even now during the recession, mean many young people are priced out of owning their own homes, especially if they can’t rely on the bank of mum and dad. We also need to tackle the threat of climate change. More than a quarter of our carbon emissions come from our homes. We are committed to reducing emissions by 80% by 2050 to make Britain’s homes and economy greener.

Our belief in the importance of housing and meeting Britain’s big challenges underpin our housing record over the last 12 years. We’ve invested 21bn into making public housing decent again; we’ve built more affordable homes and helped more first-time buyers into homeownership; we’ve reduced the numbers of rough sleepers and ended the shame of families being housed in B+Bs; we toughened controls on the worst landlords and legislated to make homes greener and more energy efficient – starting with the homes of the poorest and most vulnerable.

In the recession, housing has become even more important. The global financial crisis saw private house building collapse, threatening people’s jobs and the homes families desperately need now. That’s why, in June when I became Housing Minister, I led the Labour Government pledge to invest an additional £1.5bn in the teeth of the recession to build more affordable homes and protect jobs and skills in the construction industry. As part of that investment, we’re making government money available to councils and we now have underway the biggest council house building programme for two decades. Our extra investment during the recession has created 45,000 jobs and 3,000 apprenticeships for young people.

We also know that many existing homeowners are struggling with their mortgages and worried about arrears and repossession. I know how lonely and isolated people can feel with the threat of losing their home hanging over them. Unlike the Tory Government in the last recession, Labour has acted quickly and comprehensively to keep people in their homes with advice and support, regulation and pressure on lenders and backstop schemes to help the most vulnerable. As a result, repossessions are running at half the rate of the last Tory recession.

Many of the housing problems we face boil down to the fact that Britain has too few homes and too few affordable homes. That’s why many first-time buyers are priced out of the market and why too many struggle to find housing they can afford. That’s why we’re building 112,000 additional affordable homes this year and next. A good and fair society is one where everyone has the home they need.

People must feel the system itself is fair which is why we have given councils more leeway to allocate public housing to meet local needs – perhaps to recognise strong local connections, or length of time on the waiting list or to support people into work. It’s also why we’ve launched the first ever national crackdown on fraud in social housing – those tenants that illegally profit from renting out their council or housing association home, depriving families the affordable rented homes they need.

The Tories have said ‘no’ to: extra public investment and more affordable homes; to help families facing repossession in the recession; and to the homes of the future in the new ecotowns. They don’t believe in decent, secure, affordable homes for all. They want to cut investment; they want less government responsibility for securing the homes people need; and they want to end secure tenancies and raise rents to open market levels.

The Choice

There is a clear choice between Labour and the Conservatives on housing. We have different values, different priorities and different plans.

We can make housing a stronger Labour platform in each and every local area.

This campaign pack provides Labour MPs, PPCs, councillors, CLPs, and Labour supporting trades unionists and tenant activists with core material and campaigning ideas. It can be used to campaign locally on Labour’s record and future plans for housing, and to challenge the local record or known intentions of the Tories and Lib Dems – on public housing, on new build and development, and on support for struggling homeowners.

The pack is part of a new campaign to bring together all those across the Labour movement who want progressive housing policies and who will campaign locally to highlight what these are and deliver them.

From now until the general election, further policy announcements, campaign resources and ideas for action will follow. We will also share information from local campaigns that could be used elsewhere.

At the next general election, people will face a big choice with far reaching consequences and on housing both the choice and the consequences could not be greater.

John Healey MP

Minister for Housing and Planning

Labour and Housing: a Proud Record

Labour has a proud record on housing and we remain, as we have been for one hundred years, the party committed to secure, decent and affordable housing for all. As a Labour government since 1997 we have a strong record:

Building more homes and more affordable homes:

The Prime Minister’s Housing Pledge, announced in June, provided another £1.5bn, on top of the existing £6bn already allocated to build new affordable homes. In total, it will mean Labour builds 112,000 new affordable homes, this year and next.
£940m of the Housing Pledge money has been given to housing associations to build new affordable housing.
Almost £500m is being used to ‘kickstart’ building sites stalled by the recession and the collapse in construction.
£260m of government money is being allocated to councils as part of the biggest council house building programme for 2 decades, so they can build the homes their communities need.
In addition to this, the government has given £1.7bn PFI funding to regenerate 10 of the most deprived areas in England.

Putting councils centre stage:

We believe in council housing and want to see more of it. As well as investing £260m of government money in new council housing, Labour is dismantling the central funding system that means councils will keep all their rent and sales income and could in the future freely build and improve their own properties again.
We have strengthened councils’ freedom to allocate public housing according to local needs; councils may give more priority to people who have been on waiting lists for a long time or those with strong local connections or those in low paid work.

Help in the recession:

Labour increased investment in housing to provide the homes that people need and secure constructions jobs as private housebuilding collapsed by half. As well as funding to build 112,000 affordable homes during the recession, we are maintaining and creating 160,000 jobs this year and next.
As a condition of receiving public money developers, public and private must provide apprenticeships, keeping young people in work and training now and building the skills we’ll need in the future. This year and next we will create around 3,000 extra apprenticeships.
In the face of the recession we’ve supported homeowners to stay in their homes. Because of our actions the current repossession rate is running at half that of the last recession, and the Council for mortgage lenders in the 2009 revised their forecast for repossessions from 75,000, to 65,000 then to 48,000.

PLUS…

Helping people buy their home: Since 1997 we have helped over 130,000 first time buyers own their own home through shared ownership or with equity loans. We’ve providing support for 30,000 more first time buyers, over the next 2 years. For information on how people access these products: http://www.homesandcommunities.co.uk/home_buy

Eco-towns: Labour has given the green-light to the first wave for 4 eco-towns, which set out the highest ever standard of green living in Britain. There are 9 expressions of interest from local authorities, covering 14 new locations as part of the second wave of eco-towns.

http://www.communities.gov.uk/housing/housingsupply/ecotowns/

Cutting fraud: Labour launched the first-ever national crackdown on tenancy cheats to recover up to 10,000 council and housing association homes fraudulently sublet, and release them to those in real need. http://www.communities.gov.uk/news/corporate/1397396

Protecting tenants: For the first time, every tenant who rents their home from the council or a housing association will have guaranteed housing standards. From the 1 April 2010, over 8 million people will have these standards protected by the Tenant Services Authority. http://www.communities.gov.uk/statements/corporate/tsadirections

Decent Homes: Through the Decent Homes Programme, council-owned homes have been fitted with over 700,000 new kitchens, 525,000 new bathrooms and over 1 million new central heating systems. Over £33bn (£21bn from Government) has been invested in social housing and we have reduced the number of non-decent social homes by one and a half million.

http://www.communities.gov.uk/news/corporate/1406391

Families in Bed & Breakfasts: In 2004, local authorities met Labour’s target that no families should be housing in a B&B for more than 6 weeks. When we pledged to tackle this issue in 2002, up to 4,000 families were housed in B&Bs.

Rough sleeping: Labour has reduced the number of rough sleepers from 1850 in 1998, to 464 in 2009 according to local authority counts.

We’re proud of our record, but we know that in housing there is still much to be done. The single biggest challenge remains: Britain simply has too few homes to house everyone securely and affordably.

The Tories: Out of Step with Tenants, Homeowners and Industry

During the last recession the Tories stepped back, and allowed the downturn to take its course, leaving families to fend for themselves. They why they’ve refused to back the help we’ve put in place to help people during the recession. They refuse to support:

Labour’s help to combat repossessions
Extra investment during the recession to maintain supply of new affordable homes
Extra investment to create and protect jobs
Policies to make homes greener and better
Protection and security for public housing tenants.

The Tories have sought already to block new affordable housing at every turn:

Shadow Secretary for Communities and Local Government, Caroline Spelman has written to Tory council leaders inciting them to block housing developments and cut the financial ground from under the building industry. http://www.lgcplus.com/Journals/3/Files/2009/9/1/DearColleague-Planning-RSS-Aug2009-Cllrs-1.doc
The House Builders Federation expressed “real concern” with the Spelman letter, warning: “The timing is unfortunate: housing providers have been through the worst downturn in living memory and the letter would lead to a hiatus in planning for housing that could only exacerbate the supply crisis we already face”. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3f2b4000-a0c5-11de-b9ef-00144feabdc0.html?catid=46&SID=google
The Chief Executive of Taylor Wimpey has labelled the Tories housing plans are “as scary as hell”. http://www.house-builder.co.uk/rss/news.php?id=4824
The Tories have committed to scytheing public investment in housing – £800m alone last year – at a time when we desperately need more homes and the jobs they create.
They even oppose the apprenticeships now in place as part of our Housing Pledge. Shadow Housing Minister Grant Shapps has labelled as “ridiculous” the criteria Labour is placing on developers to use apprentices for publicly funded housing projects. http://www.building.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=3151019#ixzz0VGJ5ONSc

The Tories remain hostile to those who live in council or housing association homes:

The Tories have secret plans to:

End secure tenancies for council and housing association tenants.
Increase social rents to market levels.
Stereotype and stigmatize public housing tenants.

Stephen Greenhalgh, leader of Hammersmith and Fulham council and head of the Tories Council Innovation Unit described social housing as “barracks for the poor” from which it is “hard to get rid of people”. He also talks of “tearing down the Berlin Wall of varying tenure and rent levels that operates between the private rented and social rented sectors”.

See the materials sourced through Freedom of Information requests at:

http://www.gofourth.co.uk/the-tories-real-housing-plan

David Cameron himself uses sweeping social stereotypes, and betrays his belief that that a life in public housing is one that is not worth living: “Generations of families are trapped in social housing, denied the chance to break out … I don’t want a child’s life story written before they’re even born.”

See Cameron’s foreword via link at: http://www.conservatives.com/News/News_stories/2009/04/Shapps_launches_radical_new_housing_policies.aspx

The Estates they’re in…

The Tories’ priority estates are not council estates but the estates of the richest few in the country. They’ve pledged a £200,000 inheritance tax giveaway to the wealthiest 3000 families. They’re not interested in the millions squeezed by the downturn, struggling for a decent, secure and affordable home to buy or to rent.

For all Cameron’s attempts at PR gloss and his constant talk of the need for change in Britain, nothing has changed with the Tories…

Campaigning on Housing: Unified but Local

Party campaigners will be able to judge what issues matter most locally in your area, and therefore how Labour’s campaigning can best be focused. Four core campaign themes have been identified to help you take action:

– Building More Homes, Creating More Jobs

– Helping the Homeowners of Today and Tomorrow

– Supporting and Defending Tenants

– Greener, Better Homes

In each of these four campaign areas, we suggest ideas and sources of useful further information.

Campaign materials and tactics that others have used are readily available via the Parliamentary Labour Party resource centre at the House of Commons.

And if you have produced successful campaign material of your own, share with Labour colleagues via the PLP and regional party communications officers.

Building More Homes, Creating More Jobs

Labour Values in Action

For most people, the two most important things they want in life are a good job and a decent home that they can afford. Across Britain, the delivery of more affordable housing is essential. Many people are priced out of buying. Many young people have to move to find the homes they want. Too many people still live in overcrowded accommodation and homes that don’t meet their family’s needs.

The worst global recession for 50 years has made it even tougher to deliver the homes we need in this country. Over the past year, private house building has collapsed, down by half on the previous twelve months. Labour however, has responded by putting more money into building more homes, with government-backed house building investment increasing by almost 20%.

Such a boost for the construction industry means firms can keep building to supply the homes we need, keep people in work and at the same time create new jobs and apprenticeships. In the teeth of a recession, we have invested to keep tens of thousands of people in their jobs – able to support themselves and their families.