Plenty to go around

Everyone deserves the opportunity to rent or buy a decent home at a price they can afford, in a place where they want to live and work.
That is why I made housing one of my top priorities when I became prime minister.

We already have a proud record - including 1 million more homeowners, more than 400,000 new affordable homes and an extra 1 million homes refurbished since 1997.

But this is no time for complacency, which is why my housing minister John Healey and I are working so hard to take forward our achievements.
Global recession has made conditions for developers, lenders, landlords, tenants and homeowners increasingly challenging.

Our immediate response has been to lift the threat of repossession for thousands, to support first-time buyers and to get lending flowing again, while also making sure that we protect skills and jobs in the construction industry.

Now - by increasing our investment in social housing - more decent, affordable homes will be ready for families to live in sooner and house builders will be better-placed to weather tough times.

In Building Britain’s future, our blueprint for a fairer, stronger and more prosperous society, we committed an extra £1.5 billion to housing beyond announcements in the Budget. This will fund a further 20,000 homes, pay for an extra 10,000 market properties on mixed tenure developments and create 45,000 jobs. Total investment over the next two years is now £7.5 billion to provide 112,000 affordable homes.

This is both crucial to the economy as we push for recovery and also honours our moral duty to overcome decades of shortages and to meet the rising demands of an increasing and ageing population.

The expertise and contribution of social landlords are essential to our efforts and we have given them extra resources, such as flexibility in grants rates and the introduction of the rent-to-buy product.

At the same time, we also need to broaden the range of providers of affordable housing in this demanding economic environment. Local authorities should play their part in meeting their communities’ needs.

Changes to council housing finance rules mean they can now keep the full rent receipts on new build properties and the full capital returns when any of those houses or flats is sold. We are also proposing to reform the entire system, allowing town halls to keep all their rental income and capital receipts in exchange for a one-off redistribution of debt.

These changes are underpinned by the additional money in both the Budget and the housing pledge to enable local authorities to build around 4,000 more council homes.

New guidance will also give authorities more flexibility on how they allocate social housing. And we will tackle fraud in the social sector to free more homes for those who play by the rules.

This radical new approach, I believe, will deliver the robust, sustainable and fair housing market essential to Britain’s future.

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