Labour To Only Tax Homes Worth Over £2m

Labour has moved to reassure people with homes worth between £1m and £2m that they would not be dragged into the mansion tax the party would impose if it wins power in next May’s election. Ed Balls, the shadow Chancellor,  announced that someone with a property worth between £2m and £3m would pay an extra £250 a month – doubling the average council tax bill for homes in the top band. He said owners of properties worth tens of millions would make “a much bigger contribution” and that Labour will consider making overseas owners with second homes in the UK pay an extra amount. Read more on the Independent website.

Labour Will Not Lift Cap on Council Borrowing For Housebuilding

Ed Balls has toughened Labour's fiscal position by pledging not to fund any new policy pledges through extra borrowing. But what about allowing councils to borrow more for housebuilding? The idea was being explored as part of the Lyons Review, which is examining how Labour can meet its pledge to build 200,000 homes a year by 2020. There are good reasons for doing so. The CIH estimates that raising the cap by £7bn could enable the construction of 60,000 homes over the next five years. Despite this Labour will not pledge to lift the cap. A spokesman for Ed Balls said: "We want to prioritise housing, but we also want to be fiscally responsible." He suggested that the 200,000 target could be met through other sources such as self-builders and SMEs. Read more on the New Statesman website.

Balls Attacks Tories over 'Failure to Build New Homes'

Interest rates could rise “prematurely” because the Government has failed to build new homes quickly enough, shadow chancellor Ed Balls claims. In the latest Labour summer campaign speech he said Britons had suffered the worst fall in real wages for more than 100 years and that a rise in loan rates would deepen austerity.  Mr Balls said many modern Britons had never had it so bad.  “Even before living standards have stopped falling, this Government’s failure to get more houses built means there is now a real risk that interest rates will rise prematurely to rein in an unbalanced housing market.”  Read more on the Evening Standard website.

Labour Mayoral Candidates Cast Doubt on Mansion Tax

Three Labour figures tipped to run as London mayor have expressed reservations about their party's proposed "mansion tax" – a key policy championed by the shadow chancellor, Ed Balls. Dame Tessa Jowell, Diane Abbott and David Lammy, who are all possible candidates in 2016, raised doubts about the charge on houses worth more than £2m which the party has pledged to introduce to pay for a lower 10p starting rate of tax. They were asked about the issue as they appeared alongside a fourth fellow Labour mayoral hopeful, shadow infrastructure minister Lord Adonis, at an event hosted by Progress magazine about how Labour can win votes in London in 2015. Read more on the Guardian website.

Labour Pledges to Build 200,000 New Homes per Year

A Labour Government would plough billions of pounds into a huge housebuilding programme to tackle Britain’s housing crisis, according to Ed Balls.  Plans are for the Treasury to underwrite the cost of building several new towns to enable Labour to double the number of new homes being built each year to at least 200,000 by 2020. Labour also plans to increase government borrowing to fund more building by councils and housing associations. Although a final decision will be taken closer to the 2015 election, it could channel an extra £10bn into such social housing. Read more on the Independent website.

Balls Pledges Extra £3bn to Build 100,000 Affordable Homes

The shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, has unveiled plans to stimulate the economy by using a £3bn windfall from the sale of the 4G mobile phone spectrum to build 100,000 affordable homes, rather than to reduce debt, should Labour win the next election.  He said that it is time to "cut through the dither and rhetoric and actually do something".  The move is politically bold since polls still show voters are anxious that Labour will not be tough enough to rein in spending. The 4G sale is due to take place next year, and Balls's choice reflects his belief that George Osborne is losing the argument over how best to deal with the deficit.  Read more on the Guardian website.

Lab 2012: Time for a Fundamental Rethinking Of Housing Strategy

At the Labour conference, shadow chancellor Ed Balls called for 100,000 more affordable homes to be built.  An apparent constraint on building affordable homes is the dire state of the public finances. Yet in this current spending round the government will spend £100 billion in this area. The problem is that 95 per cent of it will go on Housing Benefit and just 5 per cent on building badly needed homes. Part of the answer is to allow local councils with strong balance sheets to borrow against their housing assets to finance new affordable house building.  But we also need to drive a shift from current to capital spending over the medium term – reversing the shift from housing capital to housing benefit. In a recently published report, “Together at home: A new strategy for housing”, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has suggested a way this could be done, by also embracing a radical localism.  The centre-piece would be a long term strategy to decentralise power and responsibility for housing expenditure to local areas – perhaps local government – with a remit for meeting local housing need, including by increasing housing supply. If Labour was to be really bold and radical on housing, this is an idea it should be taking up.  Download a copy of the report from the IPPR website.