Labour vs Conservatives: housing promises compared
Just two weeks to go until the general election nobody wanted, and both Labour and the Conservatives have now launched their manifestos, packed full of promises and pledges.
Let’s skip over the B word, and go straight to another topic that affects all of us: housing.
Both Labour and the Conservatives say they’re offering us the keys (that’s a metaphor for policies) that will unlock doors (that’s actual doors) for generations to come. But government after government has tried and failed to solve the problem of housing. How do these new manifestos stack up?
In the blue corner, the Conservative government. Their headline pledges aren’t the most imaginative: a million more homes, of all types, plus more long-term fixed rate mortgages.
No-one would disagree that more homes for ordinary families would be just great. But some have called this manifesto too cautious — and though these policies are helpful they’re hardly groundbreaking.
They don’t tackle some of the key challenges people are facing, like being able to afford a house to begin with. House prices have skyrocketed in certain areas, and people are being priced out.
The Conservatives are also promising more protections for renters, and to renew something called the Affordable Homes Programme, a scheme set up to provide housing at ‘affordable’ levels across the country. But they’ve faced criticism about that programme, as well as Help to Buy. That’s because their definition of what’s ‘affordable’ doesn’t fully take into account the difference in house prices across regions.
Over in the red corner, it’s a whole other story. Labour’s manifesto on housing is anything but cautious. They want to give councils the powers and funding to buy back homes from private landlords. They want to create a land value tax for commercial landlords, to encourage developers to build on unused land. And they want to set up an ‘English Sovereign Land Trust’ to give councils more authority and cash to build new houses, and take private properties into public ownership.
Radical solutions — but then, housing is a radical problem.
Labour also have a whole load of doorstep friendly policies that are sure to go down well with lots of people. Like a commitment to build more low-cost homes reserved for first-time buyers across the UK. And reforming Help to Buy, to focus it on first-time buyers with ordinary incomes. They also want to cap rent increases in line with inflation.
The criticism Labour are facing is: how realistic are these policies, really? In the short term, things like tax incentives to encourage building in certain areas might get the market moving. But creating new departments, Sovereign Trusts and renters’ unions in every part of the country is a lot of work. These measures might be effective for the mid to long term, but what about people who are facing challenges in housing today?
Lots of people feel like they’ll never be able to buy their own home. Both these manifestos talk about long-term improvements, but risk skating over the problems people are facing right now. And while we applaud some of the ambition, we know all too well how quickly those ambitions can unravel when you’re faced with actually doing them.
No matter what happens, Habito is here to support people through the hell of house-buying — where that’s under the Conservatives, Labour, or anyone else.
