Sunak Prioritised Landlord Tax Break Over Fixing Housing Crisis

Labour has accused Rishi Sunak of announcing a tax break for second homeowners and landlords with his stamp duty cut while failing to announce measures to “tackle runaway house prices and build truly affordable housing”. Following the Budget, the opposition party has highlighted that the continuation of a reduced rate of stamp duty land tax to September will hand half a billion pounds to landlords and holiday lets. 34% of homes bought in 2019/20 were second homes, buy-to-let properties or residential properties bought by companies. Documents from the Treasury show that the reduced rate of stamp duty will cost £1.6bn. Read more on the Labour List website.

https://labourlist.org/2021/03/sunak-prioritised-landlord-tax-break-over-fixing-housing-crisis-says-labour/

Scrap Benefit Cap To Avoid Eviction Crisis, Labour Tells Government

Ministers must scrap the benefit cap to avoid an eviction crisis when the ban extension ends, Labour has said. Shadow employment minister Seema Malhotra has written to the government demanding figures on how many households caught by the benefit cap are at risk of eviction once the current moratorium ends on 20 September. Figures released earlier this month showed that the number of households caught by the cap nearly doubled between February and May up to more than 150,000. Read more on the Labourlist website.

https://labourlist.org/2020/08/labour-calls-on-government-to-scrap-benefits-cap-to-stop-evictions-crisis/

How Nottingham Labour Is Tackling The Housing Crisis

In May 2015, Nottingham Labour stood for election on five key pledges, one of which was a commitment to build 2,500 new homes that Nottingham people could afford to rent or buy. Four years later we have managed to build 2,293 new affordable homes and we have 534 more in the planning stages. Achieving this meant that Nottingham City Council embarked on the biggest new council house building program in a generation: over the last four years, we’ve built 523 new council homes. The political focus we placed on meeting this target means we have created award winning quality developments in partnership with our ALMO, Nottingham City Homes and they are now one of the top social housing builders in the UK. Read more of this article by Cllr Linda Woodings on the Labourlist website.

https://labourlist.org/2019/04/how-nottingham-labour-is-tackling-the-housing-crisis-and-wants-to-do-more/

Raab’s Record? Six Housing Failures In Six Months

As Kit Malthouse goes through the revolving door of the MHCLG, Theresa May is onto her fourth housing minister in less than two years. This despite declaring housing to be a top domestic priority – one of the “burning injustices” she was determined to do something about. How did he do in the six months he was responsible for housing?

1.       Genuine affordable house building at its lowest levels since records began

2.       Home ownership at a 30-year low

3.       Planning policy lets developers get away with dodgy deals

4.       Council housebuilding blocked by Tory policies

5.       Grenfell survivors let down time and again

6.       Lack of action on fire-safety to learn the lessons on Grenfell

Read more on the Labour List website.

https://labourlist.org/2018/07/sarah-jones-raabs-record-six-housing-failures-in-six-months/

Labour Hit Back At Cameron’s “Record Of Failure” On Housing

Labour’s Shadow Housing minister John Healey has slammed the “five years of failure on housing” since Cameron took office. He said: “Over the last five years with David Cameron in charge the Conservatives have completely failed on housing. They claim to be the party of home ownership but it has fallen every year for the past five years and is now at its lowest level for a generation – for those under 35, it’s down by over a fifth. Their record of failure has also seen rapidly rising rents, more homelessness, higher housing benefits bill, and fewer homes built than at any time since the 1920s. After five years of failure on housing, the millions of people struggling to cope with their housing costs deserve a real plan for more affordable homes to rent and buy. And the country needs a new wide debate about how our deepening housing crisis can be tackled.” Read more on the Labour List website.

Extend Right to Buy To Tenants of Private Landlords

The ‘Right To Buy’ policy that lets council tenants buy their homes at a big discount should be extended to the tenants of private landlords, a Labour leadership contender has said. Jeremy Corbyn said Labour needed to go further in tackling the housing crisis and that extending Right To Buy could help more people find a secure place to live. “We know that Generation Rent faces an uphill struggle simply to get into long-term housing. We have seen some good ideas from Labour to establish more secure tenancies for renters. Now we need to go further and think of new ways to get more people into secure housing,” he said. “So why not go with Right to Buy, with the same discounts as offered by way of subsidised mortgage rates, but for private tenants and funded by withdrawing the £14 billion tax allowances currently given to Buy to Let landlords? Read more on the Labour List website.