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Labour proposes scrapping affordable rent in social housing review
Labour has proposed scrapping the affordable rent tenure in its social housing review, published today.
The paper suggests replacing the rent product – which was introduced by the coalition government and can be up to 80% of market rates – with a new income-linked definition of affordable housing. Before the last general election, Labour pledged to fund ‘Living Rent’ homes capped at a third of local incomes.
It also now calls for a new “Decent Homes 2” target for social landlords to improve fire safety in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster.
In addition, the paper proposes making housing associations subject to the Freedom of Information Act and requiring all social landlords to publish fire safety reports regularly.
And it says Labour would prohibit for-profit housing associations.
Jeremy Corbyn and shadow housing secretary John Healey will unveil the paper, titled Housing for the Many, at the Local Government Association headquarters in London on Thursday morning.
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Mr Corbyn launched the review during his speech to the Labour party conference last September, a week after the government announced a Social Housing Green Paper.
“We need to restore the principle that a decent home is a right owed to all, not a privilege for the few,” he will say at the launch.
“And the only way to deliver on that right for everyone, regardless of income, is through social housing.”
The review makes a series of proposals to increase housebuilding and make homes more affordable.
It sets a target of a million new affordable homes over the next 10 years, mostly at social rent.
That effectively extends the party’s 2017 general election commitment to build 100,000 affordable homes a year by the end of the next parliament, in the hope of clearing England’s current housing waiting list of around 1.16 million households.
To achieve the goal, Labour calls for a new “duty to deliver affordable homes” to be imposed on councils, as well as a new needs assessment and an affordable new homes bonus.
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The party also promises to establish a new English Sovereign Land Trust to help councils acquire land more cheaply.
It would also form a new national tenants’ organisation and commissioner.
David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, said the paper is “a positive statement of ambition” which includes “many policies to welcome”.
“This paper should be the catalyst for further important conversations between the sector and the Labour Party and we look forward to working with them on this,” he said.
Terrie Alafat, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing, said: “In recent years the definition of affordable housing has been stretched to breaking point for many people – the time is right for a national debate on what genuinely affordable housing should look like in all parts of the country.”
A full copy of the report is attached.
At a glance: Labour’s social housing proposals
- Scrap the affordable rent product and introduce new income-linked rents
- Introduce a new “Decent Homes 2” target for social landlords to improve fire safety post-Grenfell
- Make housing associations subject to the Freedom of Information Act
- Prohibit for-profit housing associations
- Set a new target of one million new affordable homes over 10 years, mostly at social rent
- Impose a new duty to deliver affordable homes on councils, introducing a new needs assessment and an affordable new homes bonus
- Establish a new English Sovereign Land Trust to help councils acquire land more cheaply.
- Form a new national tenants’ organisation and commissioner
- A “longer-term aim” for half of all new homes to be “genuinely affordable”
- Give housing associations access to Public Works Loan Board finance
- Consider returning in full the Treasury’s previous year’s share of Right to Buy receipts
- Introduce a planning “presumption” that all developments, including rural and smaller sites, will include affordable housing
- Help councils with no stock to start a Housing Revenue Account
- Fast-track Karen Buck’s Homes (Fitness for Habitation) bill
- Consult on requiring landlords to publish an annual “outsourcing statement”
- Consult on housing associations to be required to have tenants on their boards
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