THE UK’S LABOUR Party has promised a council and social housing “revolution” by building up to 150,000 such homes a year by the end of its time in office.
The party’s manifesto, which was launched this morning by Jeremy Corbyn, includes plans for the largest ever post-war council house-building effort costing £75 billion.
The plans envisage that 100,000 of these homes would be built by councils for rent, an enormous increase on the 6,287 built over 2018/2019 under the current government.
A further 50,000 “genuinely affordable homes” would be built each year through housing associations by the end of the same period.
Labour says it will spend half of its £150 billion “social transformation fund” on house-building over five years.
The building programme will only take place in England, with housing being a devolved matter for governments across the UK.
To fund the housing project and Labour’s other spending plans, the party is planning to increase tax revenue by £82.9 billion a year by 2024.
Corbyn has promised the increases will not affect 95% of taxpayers.
The plans would reverse cuts to public sector pay with above-inflation pay rises year-on-year, paid for by an increase in taxes for those earning more than £80,000 while freezing rates for everyone else.
Among the other tax increases is a pledge to gradually increase corporation tax rate from its current rate of 21% to 26%, this Labour says would raise £23.7 billion annually.
Among its other pledges on housing, Labour has promised to create “a new English Sovereign Land Trust, with powers to buy land more cheaply for low-cost housing”.
“We will use public land to build this housing, not sell it off to the highest bidder. Developers will face new ‘use it or lose it’ taxes on stalled housing developments,” the manifesto states.
Labour also wants to scrap the current definition of “affordable” rents and replace it with “a definition linked to local incomes”.
Corbyn has also said that as Prime Minister he would lead a task force aimed at “ending rough sleeping within five years”.
In launching the manifesto in Birmingham this morning, Corbyn said it was “the most radical and ambitious plan to transform our country in decades.
“Housing should be for the many, not a speculation opportunity for dodgy landlords and the wealthy few,” he said.
“I am determined to create a society where working-class communities and young people have access to affordable, good-quality council and social homes.”
Official UK housing statistics have shown more than one million households are on waiting lists for council housing.
- With reporting by Press Association
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say