With a shortage of homes, intractable planning laws and an increasing population, the UK’s housing market is a point of contention for those looking to get on the housing ladder and those already on it. For voters this year, it is a big issue.
With that in mind, what are the main parties promising the electorate they are going to do if elected to form a government?
Labour
Starting off with the current favourites to win the general election, Labour have committed in their manifesto to –
- Build 1.5 million new homes, including a preference for housing that offers more affordable rental and ownership schemes.
- Give people who rent their home more rights and stop them being removed without good reason.
- Update the National Policy Planning Framework to restore mandatory housing targets, including for mayoral authorities, and strengthen the presumption of sustainable development for new residential planning applications, particularly on brownfield urban sites.
- Take a more strategic approach to greenbelt designation and release more land for homes to be built on. New development requirements will at the same time have to focus on benefitting communities and nature.
- Increase non-resident Stamp Duty Land Tax surcharge from 2% to 3% and use the income generated from that to fund additional planning officers for development implementation, including for the development of new towns.
- Make it easier for authorities to enforce compulsory land purchase, and reduce payouts to landowners, basing compensation on actual value rather than based on the prospect of planning permission.
- Make it more difficult and expensive to purchase social housing.
- Require developers to prioritise selling new homes to first-time buyers and locals rather than overseas buyers.
- Introduce a mortgage guarantee scheme to support first-time buyers.
- Ban new leasehold flats and promote commonhold as the default tenure, as well as “tackling unregulated and unaffordable ground rent charges.” It also talks about ending the “injustice of leasehold private housing estates and unfair maintenance costs”, as well as making it easier and cheaper for lease extensions and granting more rights to manage.
Conservatives
The current party in power has committed to the following if re-elected –
- Build 1.6 million new homes, creating more flexibility by abolising planning laws previously enforced by the EU and prioritising building on brownfield land in urban areas, whilst protecting greenbelt land.
- Focus on raising density levels in inner London to those of European cities like Paris and Barcelona and focusing on regeneration sites in Euston, Old Oak Common and Thamesmead. Outside London the focus on redevelopment will be towards the cities of Leeds, Liverpool and York.
- Require councils to set land aside for local and smaller builders as well as enforcing less planning requirements on them.
- Require local authorities to use infrastructure levies paid to them by developers to improve the local areas, such as by delivering road improvements and GP surgeries to support the new homes.
- Renew the affordable homes programme so more people can get on the housing ladder and make permanent abolishing Stamp Duty for homes up to £425k for 1st time buyers. A new Help to Buy scheme will be introduced to provide up to 20% of the cost towards a new home, requiring buyers to only have a 5% deposit (funded in part by contributions from residential developers).
- introduce a “three strikes and you’re out” policy for anti-social behaviour from social housing tenants.
- Retain the number of current council tax bands, and see where cuts can be made to costs families are making.
- Retain the rule of people not paying Capital Gains Tax on their main home, retain rules permitting people to purchase their own social housing and retain current Stamp Duty levels.
- Provide a 2 year Capital Gains Tax relief to Landlords who sell their property to their existing tenants.
- Cap ground rents at £250 and phase in a reduction to a peppercorn (ie. zero pounds).
- Make it more difficult to end a lease through forfeiture of long leases and outlaw evictions of private tenants without good reason.
- Give councils the powers to limit holiday lets.
Liberal Democrats
The Lib Dem manifesto has promised to
- Build 380,000 new homes including 150,000 social homes a year through “new garden cities” and encouraing community-led development.
- Banno-fault evictions and make 3 years the default for tenancies, as well as creating a national register of licenced landlords.
- Give local authorities the right to end people’s ability to purchase their social housing.
- Permit local councils to purchase land at current value for redevelopment rather than inflated planning-added-value rates.
- Ensure new development has better flooding protections where relevant.
- Introduce‘use-it-or-lose-it’ planning permission for developers to encourage them to build, rather than sit on empty land.
- Introduce a rent to earn scheme whereby rental payments go towards ownership in the final equity of property.
- Make homes warmer and cheaper to heat with a ten-year emergency upgrade programme, and ensure that all new homes are zero-carbon.
- Remove dangerous cladding from all buildings, while ensuring that leaseholders do not have to pay a penny towards it.
Reform
The newest “big” party has committed to
- Fast track brownfield site development applications and provide more flexibility to developers who wish to undertake large residential developments.
- Require developers to prioritise local buyers.
- Enable landlords to deduct finance costs and mortgage interest from tax on rental income to encourage smaller landlords into the market.
- Incentivise new construction technology to speed up home building.
- Require potential leasehold or freehold charges to be made clear to new home purchasers.
- Reduce costs to extend leases and for leaseholders to buy their freehold.
Greens
The Greens have committed to
- Require local authorities to spread small developments across their areas.
- Require all new developments to be accompanied by the extra investment needed in local health, transport and other services.
- Ensure that all new homes include solar panels and heat pumps, where appropriate.
- Invest:
- £29bn to insulate homes to an EPC B standard or above.
- £4bn to insulate other buildings to a high standard
- £9bn for low-carbon heating systems (e.g. heat pumps) for homes and other buildings
- Provide 150,000 new social homes and end the private right to buy scheme.
- Introduce rent controls for local authorities to manage.
- End no-fault evictions and introduce a tenants’ right to demand energy efficiency improvements.
- Create residential tenancy boards to provide an informal, cheap and speedy forum for resolving disputes before they reach a tribunal.
This article hasn’t touched on how realistic any of these policies actually are (some of them may strike you as particularly ambitious!). Their desirability will be decided by the Great British public on the 4 July!
To discuss any of the points raised in this article, please contact Josh Fraser, or fill in the below form.
