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Fast wins for more homes: how Labour can champion infill development

Burnett House, Lewisham, an example of upward extensions. Image by Kate Matison licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

The housing crisis remains one of the most pressing issues facing Britain today. With homebuilding at crisis levels, numbers of households in temporary accommodation rising, and young people struggling to get on the property ladder, Labour recognises the urgent need for action.

Labour has a powerful electoral mandate for bold and ambitious home building. There is also a need for fast wins that deliver rapid, sustainable growth in housing supply through smart urban infill development.

Building more homes is critical for economic growth. Every 100,000 additional homes adds around 0.8% to GDP during construction. However, ambitious long-term projects like new towns will take years to bear fruit. That’s why to get results we must pull other quick levers. Three ‘fast win’ policies could boost housing supply in the short to medium term, without requiring additional central government resources.

The Government can create approximately 30,000 new homes per year through carefully planned infill development, enabling residents to expand their homes, and making the most of housing association land. This approach aligns with Labour’s commitment to prioritise brownfield development and create high-quality urban environments.

We can build new homes in the right places through:

  1. Building up: Learning from successful Labour-led initiatives in boroughs like Haringey, the government should set national policy for sympathetic towards upward extensions of existing homes. This will add more living space and create new homes while preserving neighbourhood character.
  2. Street votes: The government can complete the implementation of ‘street votes‘, an initiative based on the Mayor of London’s Outer London initiative with strong centre-left support,  empowering communities to bring forward sensitive development through local decision-making. This builds on the principle of community engagement that Labour has long championed.
  3. Estate renewal: By amending national policy through the NPPF or Written Ministerial Statement, the government can make it easier for social landlords to deliver better homes for tenants. Cross-subsidy from new market homes could fund improved council housing for existing tenants and create additional social housing stock.

These policies focus on building more homes in high-productivity areas — breaking down barriers to growth and opportunity. By enabling people to live closer to good jobs, we can reduce commute times, improve quality of life, and cut carbon emissions.

Importantly, these low-key quick win approaches prioritise small and medium-sized builders, create jobs and support local economies. This is infill development done sensitively; enhancing rather than disrupting existing communities.

Labour’s vision for attractive communities is popular with voters. By making use of the potential of brownfield sites and urban areas, we can deliver the homes we need.

A small wins approach has seen success internationally. In the US, reforms to allow ‘granny flats‘ have dramatically increased housing supply in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco. Labour’s government in New Zealand has nearly doubled new housing permits in Auckland through smart infill policies.

By enabling more homes in existing urban areas, we can make better use of infrastructure, support struggling high streets, and improve public transport viability.

Crucially, an approach to infill development prioritises community support and environmental sustainability. A Labour Government can learn from successful Labour local government initiatives like Sadiq Khan’s tenant ballots for estate renewal in London, which have shown strong resident support for carefully planned renewal and delivered thousands of council homes.

Labour’s plan for housing represents a pragmatic, forward-thinking approach to one of Britain’s most pressing challenges. By focusing on rapid, community-supported development in areas of high demand, we can boost economic growth, improve quality of life, and create the homes that Britain desperately needs. This is how we build a fairer, more prosperous country for all.

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A King’s Speech with hope for housing

2023 State Opening of Parliament by Houses of the Oireachtas is licensed under CC BY 2.0

‘My government’s overriding priority is to ensure sustained growth to deliver a fair and prosperous economy for families and businesses…’

2009

The last time a Labour Government set out its legislative agenda was in November 2009, when Gordon Brown was Prime Minister and the world was reeling from the global financial crash. This was a world before Brexit, when our aspirations included ‘peace in the Middle East’, ‘to improve management of water supplies’, ‘a reformed second chamber’ and to ‘abolish Child Poverty’. The 2010s were indeed a lost decade.

What did not get a mention was housing. The recognition of housing as a key determinant of the nation’s physical and economic health, had still not been effectively made. Arguably, this enabled the subsequent annihilation of social housing grant by Grant Shapps more politically acceptable than it should have been.

Fast forward fifteen years and we are living through a housing emergency the like of which we have not seen since the 1940s. Not one part of the housing system works effectively, be it renters’ rights, the lives blighted by years in temporary accommodation (not to mention the effect this has on local authority finances), the lack of social housing, the scandal of leasehold. Add to that building safety, the need to decarbonise our housing stock and the near impossibility for anyone getting on the housing ladder without substantial help from ‘the bank of Mum and Dad’ and it is a grim picture.

The last 15 years have seen the resurgence of housing campaigns not seen since the 1960s. Organisations like Shelter and Crisis have become the nation’s conscience and they have been joined by newer players such as Generation Rent, Priced Out and the National Leasehold Campaign. It would take a brave politician to say that housing is not one of the most salient issues.

So this morning we heard how our new Labour Government is going to spend its time, and the early political capital that comes with a massive majority. And, unlike 2009, housing was at the forefront of its agenda.

Central to this King’s Speech is a proposal to kickstart homebuilding by reforming the planning system, most notably shifting local input to an ‘how, not if’ basis in areas failing to build enough housing. Doing this marks a considerable shift in the housing debate on the ground, enabling discussions to go ahead on the basis that homes will go ahead, and making it easier for communities to discuss their priorities for new developments, whether these be social housing delivery, greener homes, or infrastructure enrichment.

Reforms to compulsory purchase compensation rules will make it cheaper to build housing, and particularly the social housing which we so desperately need. And simplifying the consenting process for major infrastructure projects will make it easier to ensure that the homes we deliver are well-provisioned with high-quality green infrastructure.

Importantly, its labelling as a Planning and Infrastructure Bill is an encouraging sign that government will increasingly tie together planning for housing and infrastructure, something called for by both sectors for some time.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives’ failure to pass the Renters’ Reform Bill is being remedied with its revival as the Renters’ Rights Bill. Not only will this introduce the long-awaited ban on Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions, but it will allow renters to challenge ‘unfair’ rent increases, apply the Decent Homes Standard and Awaab’s Law to the private rental sector, and create a digital private rented sector database. These measures will provide certainty to millions of private renters across the country who live in fear of eviction with no warning or reason.

Finally, the King’s Speech set out plans to reform the exploitative leasehold system. While the last Government passed some moderate changes to make it easier for leaseholders to buy their freehold, the Draft Leasehold and Commonhold Reform Bill will introduce the wide-ranging measures of the Law Commission, along with banning the sale of new leasehold flats so that commonhold becomes the default tenure. For the millions living in leasehold properties this will be a welcome relief.

Detail will follow in coming days on what exactly this legislation will look like, but it shows a strong commitment to both providing the homes we need, and ensuring that those living in them have security and dignity in their tenure. 

This King’s Speech is an encouraging start for what a Labour Government can do with a majority in the House of Commons. But key for many of the important measures to fix the crises in social housing delivery, decarbonising homes, and improving quality, require public spending. After clearing this hurdle, the upcoming spending review and Autumn Statement will both be opportunities to show how much money this Government is able to commit to solving these crises. 

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The housing election that wasn’t

2024 General Election in Kingston upon Hull East Holderness Road Methodist Church Doors by Hulian 11 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

With a few exceptions, the period of 22 May to 4 July 2024 was possibly the most predictable election in recent history. After six weeks of campaigning, debates and gaffes, nothing really changed. There was no breakout moment, no shifting of the debate, and no risk that the result would be anything other than a Labour landslide.

For housing campaigners, the lack of debate around the housing crisis will stand out as a missed opportunity. Before the election, housing advocates excitedly pointed to the increased salience of housing in polling, and its prominence in Labour’s 5 missions. But it hardly featured in the air war, the debates, or major policy announcements.

We can now look with hope to a Labour government poised to boost housing supply, improve quality of existing stock and reform problematic tenures like leasehold and private rent. But we should also ask: why was housing so absent from the election campaign; does this matter; and how can campaigners ensure that it is at the heart of the political discussion?

Multi-party consensus

Many pundits (including this one) pointed to housing as a dividing line at this election. The Conservatives had poignant housing failures around the Renters’ Reform Bill’s collapse and housing targets. Meanwhile, housing was at the centre of Labour’s policy offer, with the pledge to build 1.5 million homes, reform the private rental sector, and improve quality.

But the parties’ manifestos showed a relative consensus on housing policy. All agreed that housing supply needed to be sped up, with a focus on brownfield regeneration. All agreed on introducing some planning reform, with popular-sounding buzzwords to soften its potential risk. All agreed that reform of the private sector was needed. And all agreed that there was room for more social housing in the mix.

Meanwhile, more radical provisions such as rent regulation, ending the Right to Buy, or rebalancing the existing home ownership model, were off the table, meaning that there was little room for scare tactics.

What few dividing lines existed were either technical or risky. The Conservatives laid out their “cast-iron commitment to protect the Green Belt”, and while this was raised on the occasional front page it was never a fight which Labour sought. And few are qualified to, for instance, authoritatively debate the differences between Labour and the Conservatives’ leasehold policies.

The tightrope to a majority

One thing that has become clear since the election is how close things were in so many seats. While Labour’s majority is historic, it is built on precarious electoral foundations.

In housing terms, this was a tactical sacrifice of tens of thousands of votes in urban, renter-heavy seats, in exchange for those of suburban or rural, predominantly homeowner votes.

More so than in 2019 Labour’s electoral coalition contains a mix of those who are at the sharpest end of the housing crisis, and those who might worry that they would lose out from the change that is needed to solve it.

The parliamentary majority won at this election will make enacting this change easier, but making this a dividing line would have risked that majority. Labour’s ‘Ming vase’ strategy has successfully delivered dozens of MPs in previously safe Conservative seats like Hitchin and Gloucester, and talking more about planning reform or private rental reform might have lost a fair number of MPs who can now champion a wide range of progressive causes, including in housing.

This was particularly difficult in the tax-and-spend debate. So much of the election debate concerned the risk of future taxation from a Labour government, and so, while investing in skills, quality improvements, and unlocking developments may well ‘pay for themselves’ in the long run, any discussion of the amounts of spending involved would have led to further concerns of how to pay for this.

Linking the issues

Issues like the cost-of-living crisis and the state of the economy have been at the top of the political agenda at this election, but advocates failed to effectively link this to the high cost and low quality of housing.

In part, this is a symptom of the multiple crises going on in housing at the same time. The private renter locked out of home ownership and the historic resident of a dilapidated social housing block are suffering from different, albeit linked, policy failures.  

During a an election campaign, it was easier to speak of how delivering GB Energy could result in cheaper and greener power, than to explain to voters how reforming a tenure they weren’t living in, or building homes they couldn’t afford, would benefit their lives.

The real campaign is just starting

Does it matter that this was not a ‘housing election’? High salience debates often lead to polarising and extreme answers, particularly in two-party systems like the UK. And in housing, where so much is decided by the markets and private business, such populist answers can be particularly dangerous.

Whatever the state of the debate, Labour comes into office with a mandate to enact transformational change. Already planning reform is being mentioned as a priority for the first 100 days, and much more may follow soon.  

Now is the time of lowest risk and greatest opportunity. Debates about the scale of the solutions needed to end the various housing crises can be had without the risk of being turned into an attack line. And new MPs are more aware than ever of how tight their majorities are and the need to deliver for their constituents.

The task of advocates is now to drive the discussion with the hundreds of new MPs, many of whom care deeply about the housing crisis. Campaigners need to get better at demonstrating that the root causes of the housing crises, particularly the overall housing shortage, affect everyone regardless of tenure or security.   

By showing how certain reforms will help new MPs’ constituents, particularly those in marginal seats, campaigners can build a coalition for change in between elections.

This election may not have been a turning point in the debate. But, for housing advocates, the real campaign has just begun.

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What could the next government do on housing in its first 100 days?

The next government will inherit many social and economic challenges, with housing a significant part of the solution. At CIH we’re calling for a long-term housing plan, backed by targets to meet housing needs. We set out our proposals in our Homes at the Heart strategy and 10-point plan, published last autumn.  

While many of the reforms needed will require consultation and time to implement, there are some important actions the next government can take within the first 100 days of its tenure.  These would come with little to no cost, are quickly implementable, have an immediate impact, and set the tone for more ambitious reforms.  

We propose five immediate priorities, some of which are touched on in Labour’s manifesto:  

  1. Releasing public consultations on the Decent Homes Standard (DHS) and Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) in social housing, laying the groundwork for sector investment and improvements in quality, decency, and energy efficiency.
    The review of the DHS and examination of options for MEES have been ongoing for several years. Social housing providers have invested significantly in improving the quality and energy efficiency of their homes, but with no guarantee that improvements will meet higher regulatory standards.  Releasing these consultations would provide the sector with certainty on the government’s intention to introduce firm, stable regulation of social housing quality, unlocking more investment, and lay the groundwork for appropriate funding arrangements to support the sector to meet the new requirements. It would also provide social housing tenants with confidence that driving up standards is a firm priority.
  2. Reviewing the current DLUHC capital spending programme to identify unproductive spending areas and redirect investment towards social rent housing.
    Analysis published in CIH’s latest UK Housing Review (UKHR) reaffirms the need for a total supply of 300,000 new homes per annum, including 60,000-70,000 social rented units per annum in the initial period. From 2030, this should rise to around 350,000 new homes per annum, of which 90,000 should be for social rent.   In the UKHR’s assessment of all forms of government support for new housing investment between 2021/22 to 2024/25, comprising £41 billion in total, slightly more than half (51%) was directed towards the private market and 49% for affordable housing. This totals around £5 billion of investment pa for the private market. Whilst comparisons cannot be made strictly on a like-for-like basis, capital support for affordable housing supply is much higher in Scotland (90%), Wales (82%) and Northern Ireland (100%). The next government should provide a much-needed boost to affordable housing supply by rebalancing DLUHC’s capital spending and allocating a more significant proportion of the programme to social rented homes. This would have little to no effect on overall government spend.  
  3. Publishing the technical consultation on the implementation of M4(2) accessibility standards for new homes, providing certainty to housing developers that they will be required to meet new standards from April 2025.  
    In September 2020, DLUHC consulted on raising accessibility standards in new homes. In July 2022, it confirmed its intention to mandate the current M4(2) (Category 2: Accessible and adaptable dwellings) requirement in Building Regulations as a minimum standard for all new homes, subject to further consultation on draft technical details.  This has significant cross-sector support in the housing, health, and built environment sectors. In March 2024, the Building Safety Regulator said the draft technical details would be published for consultation before the summer recess. Reviewing and publishing the draft details for consultation would give certainty to developers that M4(2) will be the standard they are required to build to from April 2025, and signal to disabled people that improving the accessibility of new homes is a priority.
  4. Reducing discounts under the Right to Buy scheme (RTB) and allowing councils to set the discount rate in their area, stemming the loss of social housing and providing the government with space to examine longer-term options.
    Research by Savills estimates 100,000 homes are likely to be sold through RTB by 2030, with just 43,000 replaced as high discounts leave councils without funding to replace homes on a like-for-like basis. RTB can play an important role in enabling families to get on the housing ladder, but only if sufficient progress is made towards housebuilding targets to ensure it does not result in a net loss of social homes.  The long-term future of RTB requires more detailed policy thinking and public consultation, but the next government could take immediate steps to stem the flow of social homes into the private rented and owner occupied sectors by freezing current discount levels, preventing them from rising with inflation, and enabling councils to set the discount rate in their area according to local discretion.
  5. Implementing the measures committed to in the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023 and exploring long-term funding options for supported housing to provide much-needed accommodation for vulnerable groups.
    The Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight Act) was passed in 2023 and provides a range of powers to drive up standards. The next government should conclude recruitment for the national expert advisory panel, launch consultations on national standards for accommodation and for local authority licensing schemes, and work with the expert panel and wider sector to explore possibilities for a long-term revenue funding stream for supported housing. Quick action on the Act will enable developers to move forward with much-needed supported housing schemes with confidence, establishing an immediate pathway to growing the quality and quantity of accommodation and support for some vulnerable groups.  

Finally, whilst it would require some upfront investment, given the growing pressures on council budgets from rising homelessness the next government should also make money available to local authorities to acquire homes for temporary accommodation. This would generate considerable savings in the long run and relieve pressure on stretched LA budgets.

Rachael Williamson, Head of policy and external affairs at Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH)

The Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) is the professional body for people who work or have an interest in housing. We have approximately 17,000 members across the UK and are committed to working in partnership with the next government to build a future where everyone has a decent, safe, warm, accessible, and affordable place to call home.  

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Election 2024: 8 Prospective MPs who will tackle the housing crisis

As the general election approaches, a new generation of MPs appears on the horizon to take the mantle of solving the country’s greatest crises.

Every new and returning Labour MP will bring a wealth of experience and specialisms to help in their area of interest, along with to represent their constituents more broadly. But we at Red Brick, and the broader Labour Housing Group, will be most focused on those new MPs who will be fighting on the front lines of the housing crisis.

Housing runs through the heart of the Labour movement, and it is no surprise that there are many qualified PPCs who have it in their DNA. This is by no means an exhaustive list of these, but below are some particular candidates that members of our Executive Committee are particularly excited about:

Sarah Sackman (testimonial written by Ross Houston)

Seat: Finchley and Golders Green

Previous MP: Mike Freer (stepping down in 2024)

Required swing to win: 9.7%

Former London LHG Exec member Sarah is a much-respected barrister specialising in planning and environmental law. She has acted for local authorities, NGOs such as Shelter and individuals fighting for better housing. Her proudest career achievement was winning in the High Court for the Foxhill Estate Residents Association – preventing the demolition of 500 council homes. Sarah also worked on No One Left Behind campaign in Boston, a housing campaign to keep people in their homes during the foreclosure crisis in 2010. She’s taught a class in planning and urban politics at LSE for the last 10 years.

Andrew Lewin (testimonial written by Alison Inman)

Seat: Welwyn Hatfield

Previous MP: Grant Shapps

Required swing to win: 10.4%

For a self-confessed housing geek like me Welwyn Hatfield is a fascinating battleground seat. Labour’s Andrew Lewin is taking on veteran Tory MP Grant Shapps. Shapps was the longest serving Housing Minister since Yvette Cooper and Andrew has spent the past seven years working for one of the country’s largest housing associations.

Housing needs to be at the top of the next Government’s to-do list, and we need MPs like Andrew who understand our complex housing system and how it does and doesn’t work. We need to hit the ground running on housing and Andrew is in a great position to help us do just that.

Satvir Kaur (testimonial written by Sheila Spencer)

Seat: Southampton Test  

Required swing to win: none

Previous MP: Alan Whitehead (standing down in 2024)

Satvir has lived in Southampton all her life. She grew up on free school meals, in a deprived part of the inner city. She began her working life in her family’s shop and market stalls.

As a Southampton councillor from 2011, housing portfolio holder and then as Leader from 2022-3, Satvir led on the city’s largest council home building programme and on community initiatives to tackle poverty. Now, as the candidate, building the homes needed is one of her priorities, knowing that too many young people and families are currently giving up hope of having their own home one day

Rachel Blake (testimonial written by Alex Toal)

Seat: Cities of London and Westminster

Required swing to win: 6.3%

Previous MP: Nickie Aiken (standing down in 2024)

Former LHG Vice-Chair Rachel Blake is perfectly positioned to tackle the housing crisis. With policy experience in HM Treasury and local government, securing funding and delivering programmes of investment in new and existing council homes, she is a passionate advocate for better housing, renters’ rights and leasehold reform, holding events about these issues across the constituency, which has disproportionately high numbers of households in these tenures.

Rachel is hoping to make history as Labour’s first ever MP in ‘Two Cities’, after Labour won the council in 2022 and the London Assembly West Central seat in 2024, and would be a powerful advocate for housing in the constituency.

Tracy Gilbert (testimonial written by Ross Houston)

Seat: Edinburgh North and Leith

Required swing to win: 10.9%

Previous MP: Deirdre Brock

Housing affordability is important to Tracy. She has direct experience as a former Housing Benefits Officer and has a long record as a campaigner and champion for her community. In 2023 Edinburgh’s Labour administration declared a housing emergency in a city with acute challenges with temporary accommodation, rising rents and homelessness. Edinburgh has the lowest proportion of homes for social rent in Scotland. Tracy is Regional Secretary for USDAW and has a proven track record negotiating pay rises across the public and private sectors. Ever more vital when dealing with pressures around the cost of living and housing for her members.

Jayne Kirkham (testimonial written by Sheila Spencer)

Seat: Truro and Falmouth

Required swing to win: 4%

Previous MP: Cherilyn Mackrory

Jayne Kirkham is Labour’s Group Leader at Cornwall Council, and a Falmouth town councillor. She worked as a Trade Union and Employment Rights solicitor, then volunteered for the local CAB and worked in a local school, so knows the challenges that working people face very well.

Jayne puts housing as her number one priority for Cornwall: finding truly affordable housing in Cornwall feels like such an intractable problem.  She has a record of pressuring both local and national government to see this for the housing emergency that it is in Truro & Falmouth.

Dan Tomlinson (testimonial written by Ross Houston)

Seat: Chipping Barnet

Required swing to win: 4.6%

Previous MP: Theresa Villers  

Dan grew up on free school meals and was homeless for a time as a child. As a new dad himself the lack of decent, sustainable and affordable housing is something very close to his heart. An experienced economist who started his career in HM Treasury, Dan currently works for the UK’s leading anti-poverty charity, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and is ideally placed to champion housing solutions.

He is passionate to see sustainable and genuinely affordable homes built, but crucially with a planning system which will promote our local economies and provide the needed infrastructure, such as GPs and schools.

David Smith (testimonial written by Sheila Spencer)

Seat: Northumberland North

Required swing to win: 16%

Previous MP: Anne-Marie Trevelyan

When David moved to the North East 16 years ago, he says it was very unusual to see anyone begging on the street. He was horrified that this became the new normal under the Tories. As a result, he became CEO of a homelessness charity working across the region, after working in international development. North Northumberland covers towns and villages from Morpeth to Berwick. David recognises that it needs real investment to properly “level-up”, including high quality social housing as well as much better transport infrastructure, high-skilled green jobs, and building bridges across divides.

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A bold housing strategy means tackling more than building

The UK’s housing crisis is reaching a critical point. Rents are soaring, whilst homeownership remains out of reach for many after years of house price increases outpacing wage growth. In the late 1990s, the average house price was 3.5 times the average income in England – as of 2023, this had more than doubled to 8.2 times, with prices exceeding 12 times incomes in many areas of London. All of this means that homelessness is skyrocketing – with Britain having by far the highest rate of homelessness in the rich world when you include those in temporary accommodation, which is the largest form of homelessness. Combined with decades of declining social housing stock, demand for social homes now far outstrips supply, and local authorities are being forced to spend record amounts on high-cost, poor-quality temporary accommodation from the private sector, driving them into severe financial difficulty. In 2022/23, £1.8bn was spent by councils on temporary accommodation, over double that spent in 2018/19.

It’s in this context that this month, Positive Money and London Renters Union, a grassroots tenants union representing over 7,000 members, brought together parliamentarians, renters unions and policy experts for a discussion in parliament, Beyond Building: Fixing the UK Housing Crisis.

The discussion reflects a growing awareness that addressing the multiple crises that our housing system not only reflects but is exacerbating – from inequity that runs along racial, class and generational lines, to the climate impact of British homes – requires a fundamental shift away from homes from being treated as assets for accumulating wealth. Positive Money’s Banking on Property report sets out why approaching the crisis as a problem of housing supply alone will likely do little to solve it. Available academic evidence (plus UK Government modelling) also suggests that meeting the house building target of the current government is unlikely to bring house prices to an affordable level. As a problem driven by a toxic combination of the weakening of financial regulation and monetary policy, and wider housing policy choices including tax incentives, The Right To Buy and the deregulation of the private rental market, a housing policy agenda fit for the situation we’re in must address these drivers head-on.

Those at the sharpest end of the housing crisis, including private renters, intuitively understand the need to confront the distribution and price of housing. Yet despite an abundance of evidence and the vocal campaigning of those most impacted by the crisis, policy discussions often remain laser-focussed on how to increase the building of new homes. And despite Rachel Reeves’ welcome announcement that ‘a house should be a home not an asset’, Labour has so far announced little in the way of policies that truly reflect this ambition. Doing so undoubtedly requires a bold and multi-faceted policy programme, and a willingness to challenge the interests of those who benefit from our extractive housing system. But with housing costs making up one of the biggest items of expenditure for any household, there is a strong case that doing so would pay off for a future government.

The discussion brought together a range of voices to discuss the solutions needed, focussing on two key policy areas that, in our view, should form important components of a long-term vision for a more affordable, safer and healthier housing system: local authority acquisitions of privately-rented housing for use as council homes; and proper regulation of the private rented sector to provide security and affordability for tenants. As Beth Stratford, economist and co-founder of the London Renters Union, highlighted, the two ideas dovetail well. Since much of the pushback against regulation of the private rented sector cites concern that it could cause landlords to sell properties, acquisition programmes offer an out for those private landlords who may indeed choose to exit the sector, whilst providing the social housing we urgently need.

‘Buy back’ schemes are gaining momentum as a way to take advantage of the recent softening of house prices to rapidly increase the stock of council homes and support the sustainability of local government finances. As social housing expert and crossbench peer Richard Best reflected upon during the discussion, such programmes are not new – in the 1960s and 70s, tens of thousands of privately rented-properties, often ‘entire streets’ of houses in poor condition, were purchased and renovated by local councils. London’s buy-back schemes are key recent examples, but remain limited in scale in comparison, and do not match the ambition of similar programmes being pursued in cities like Barcelona.

Alex Diner, Senior Researcher at the New Economics Foundation (NEF), presented an analysis of how London’s buy-back scheme would more than pay for itself through both directly reducing council payments to private housing providers, as well as indirect benefits from health and earnings improvements. NEF’s proposed reforms, including establishing a national fund to support acquisitions at scale, could replicate such savings across the country whilst providing much-needed social housing. Similar programmes could be designed to support the acquisition of privately-rented homes for community-led housing, like cooperatives and community land trusts. But as speakers discussed, central to this will be a new government setting a goal to actively shift tenures away from the private rented sector’

Whilst acquisitions could offer a rapid route to expanding social housing stock, it’s unlikely that even the most ambitious agenda could alleviate the urgent situation faced by so many renters. As members of the renter unions in attendance highlighted, in the face of record price increases, insecurity, and poor quality of privately rented housing that disproportionately impacts Black, Asian and ethnic minority communities, rent controls in some form are needed.

As representatives of Living Rent, Scotland’s largest tenants’ union, explained, Scotland’s experience – where a temporary in-tenancy rent freeze has led to landlords’ hiking rents for new tenancies – is something that the rest of the UK can learn from. Policymakers should take solace from the fact that far from being put off by such experiences, major unions like Living Rent and the London Renters Union, which organise thousands at the sharpest end of the housing crisis, are instead mobilising members to call for long-term and well-designed policies to get rents under control.

Perhaps the clearest message that emerged is that many of those involved in developing and campaigning for policy solutions to the housing crisis understand that building new homes, while useful, is not a silver bullet solution. We need a suite of measures, which must include reversing financial deregulation and tax changes that incentivised property speculation, which have been major drivers of house price inflation. But reclaiming privately rented homes, and protecting those in the private rented sector, must be key pillars of a progressive housing agenda.

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“But what will Labour do differently?”

Keir Starmer speaks at USDAW Conference, Blackpool, United Kingdom - 29 April 2024 by Keir Starmer is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED

The general election is well underway. Across the country, thousands of Labour activists are speaking with voters and making the case for them to put their trust in us.

By all indicators, Britain is sick of fourteen years of Conservative failure. Only 15% of voters are satisfied with the government, and only 16% with Rishi Sunak’s record.

But we cannot take for granted the millions of voters intending to vote Labour, and need to reach out to the millions still who have not made up their minds. The need to make the case for a Labour government is greater than ever.

Voters may be sick of the Conservatives, but will still ask that crucial question: “what will Labour do differently?”

Housing is one of the sharpest dividing lines of this election. As the housing crisis intensifies it has risen up the list of voters’ priorities. It is an area where the Conservatives have most evidently failed, and where Labour has a clear plan.

Labour’s manifesto may well drop soon- this usually happens three weeks before an election. But, until then, how do we answer this question from voters?

Delivering the homes we need

Since the Second World War, the UK has failed to build 4.3 million homes compared to the average European country. Campaigns across the political spectrum recognise the need to build at least 300,000 a year to meet this backlog.

The Conservatives promised this at the last election, but repeatedly failed to deliver. They dropped a promised reform of the planning system to get Britain building, and scrapped their own housing target to appease their own backbenchers.

Meanwhile, a decade of austerity has hollowed out council planning departments, preventing them from making local plans to let communities have a say in what homes are built where. By accelerating the Right to Buy they sold off 113,000 council homes, while the number of households in temporary accommodation has soared to over 100,000.

Labour has a plan to undo these mistakes. With a sizeable majority, Labour will have the ability to reform the planning system to get Britian building, prioritising brownfield land to deliver 1.5 million homes over the next Parliament. By also reforming planning and slowing down the Right to Buy, Labour plans to deliver the biggest boost to affordable housing in a generation.

This won’t just be a builders’ charter either. By recruiting 300 extra local planners, Labour will empower local communities to take back control of their local areas and have a say over what is built where. And Labour will ensure that Section 106 agreements by developers are met, so that essential schools, roads, and GP surgeries are delivered alongside the homes we need.

Key to this will be a fresh generation of New Towns, built with mandated principles behind them, of 40% affordable and social homes, community infrastructure, transport links, and beautiful design.

By delivering the homes the country needs, Labour will put in the cornerstone to tackling the housing crisis.

Ending exploitation in the private rental sector and leasehold

The housing shortage has enabled bad actors in the private rental sector to abuse their power. While rents skyrocket, tenants are forced into overcrowded, poor-quality accommodation, often with the threat of eviction if they ask for even the slightest improvements.

The Conservatives came to power with a crystal-clear commitment to strengthen renters’ rights, and even introduced legislation in 2021 to do so. But the chaos of three prime ministers and sixhousing ministers, and the opposition of a hardcore lobby of landlord MPs have obstructed progress, and so Rishi Sunak failed to get this bill passed into law.

Not only will Labour strengthen protections for renters, but they will go further to ensure that they have the stability they deserve. A Labour government will end Section 21 ‘no-fault’ evictions, ensure that reported hazards in private rented homes are investigated within 14 days, and outlaw rental bidding wars.

Similarly, the Conservatives promised to reform the feudal practice of leasehold, to protect leaseholders from exploitative service charges and unfair practice. But, once again, this was watered down. A Labour government will pick up their mess by implementing the thorough recommendations for reform presented by the Law Commission.

Better and warmer homes

The UK has some of the oldest housing stock and least energy efficient homes in Europe. As a result, residents pay more for less, with higher energy bills, colder homes, and health risks from damp and mould, while heating our buildings also comprises 14% of our carbon emissions.  

Improving the quality of our homes will improve lives, tackle climate change and make the UK less reliant on oil-rich dictators like Vladimir Putin.

But Rishi Sunak has failed to take the necessary steps to improve home quality. Not only did he scrap the UK’s Energy Efficiency Taskforce as a political stunt, but his Great British Insulation Scheme, designed to insulate 300,000 homes by 2026, has so far only helped 7,720 households.  

Labour has a clear plan to improve home quality for the millions impacted by our poor-quality stock. A Labour government will introduce a ‘Decent Homes Standard 2’ for the private rental sector, after the first iteration by the Blair government improved lives for millions of renters. Meanwhile, a Warm Homes Plan will insulate 5 million homes by 2030, bringing them up to a minimum EPC C rating.

Reasons for hope

Fourteen years of Conservative housing failure have left the whole country footing the bill. But a Labour government with the energy and passion for change can put a stop to this. The party has a clear plan to deliver the homes we need, improve the ones we have, and protect from exploitation those at the sharpest end of the housing crisis.

“What will Labour do differently?” In housing, a hell of a lot.   

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The promise of New Towns

Stony Stratford, Buckinghamshire, one of the constituent towns which came to form Milton Keynes

A new generation of New Towns – tree-lined and with character rooted in local history! Angela Rayner outlined Labour’s ambitions at a UK housing conference in Leeds yesterday. The announcement adds more detail to the headline-grabbing New Towns plan unveiled at the Labour Conference in October 2023.

Housing campaigners have been delighted to see Labour’s priority for tackling the severe shortage of homes in England, but there have been some words of caution from economists on the lessons to be learnt from previous New Towns.

Rayner set out a robust code for Labour’s proposed New Towns with six principles. The boldest is a gold standard of 40% social and affordable housing. Another is a guarantee of public transport and public services such as GP surgeries. The code aims to overcome common objections to new developments with a focus on characterful buildings, incorporating local design, and access to nature and children’s play areas.

There has been some pushback from researchers who worry about the possible locations of New Towns. According to Ant Breach, Associate Director of the Centre for Cities, all “the easy fruit has been picked”. Breach emphasised that “you have to lean into the geography of the economy in Britain.” Others have pointed to the lack of delivery on new community infrastructure in more recent iterations of New Towns. Northstowe is one such example, where over 2,000 residents lack any shops, café or GP surgery.

New Towns such as Milton Keynes have been successful because they have close connections to vibrant existing economies. They attracted new residents with the promise of well-designed new communities with good transport links to job opportunities in nearby cities.

Some of the most successful New Towns are urban extensions to existing cities, such as Edinburgh’s New Town or Barcelona’s Eixample. Less successful New Towns have been poorly located with no such links to jobs nearby or there were already lots of local housing options already. Skelmersdale and Cumbernauld are often mentioned as New Towns that struggled to thrive for these exact reasons. The key is location, location, location.

New homes in Britain are difficult to build in part due to complex and lengthy planning processes. New Towns can help with that and may even help sidestep the political logjams that currently block homes. One motivation for New Towns is that Labour could get the best electoral outcomes by choosing deep rural locations with good rail connections, to avoid controversial measures in the more electorally challenging suburbs.

There are clear lessons from previous plans that New Towns need to be in the right locations and that delivery is a challenge. The Department for Levelling-Up, Housing and, Communities has limited resources, as does Homes England. It will be important to pick New Town sites that deliver the biggest social and economic benefits. Urban extensions of existing unaffordable towns and cities such as York, Oxford and Reading would be a great way to do this. Locations in areas where homes are more affordable, or less unaffordable, such as Nottingham or Stafford, offer less opportunity for land value capture to fund infrastructure and more social housing. Labour’s new commitment on New Towns is a bold proposal to build affordable, plentiful homes. A Labour Government must be focused on delivering homes at scale to tackle Britain’s housing crisis. New Towns can offer hundreds of thousands of people the opportunity to have a home of their own. It can also unlock the economic potential of some of our most constrained cities, helping with housing, jobs and public services across the whole country. The key will be delivery at pace. I have confidence in Angela Rayner to do that.

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Can a Labour government build more homes without exacerbating climate breakdown?

Picture by Anton Atanasov licensed by Pexels

By Paul Brannen, former MEP 2014-19

With 40 per cent of global climate emissions sourced from the built environment, a future Labour government will need to be alert to the danger that its welcome pledge to build 1.5 million homes could exacerbate climate breakdown. The good news is that the exact opposite is also possible: every desperately needed new home could also help address the climate crisis.

Why is the built environment such a major cause of climate breakdown? Concrete, steel, bricks and breeze blocks can only be manufactured using large amounts of energy, energy which is still predominately sourced from the burning of fossil fuels. Concrete is an acute problem because, as well as the energy needed, the manufacturing process of extracting the lime from the limestone triggers a chemical reaction resulting in the release of CO2 into the atmosphere. In fact, concrete is responsible for a staggering eight per cent of total global carbon emissions. Steel is almost as problematic but is partly redeemed by its high recycling rates. Currently, virtually everything we build has an unnecessarily large carbon footprint.

The CO2 emissions do not cease once construction is complete, as buildings in the UK typically need to be heated for more than half the year and, increasingly, cooled for the rest of the year due to warmer summers. Again, this is mainly done using energy sourced from fossil fuels.  In this case, the solution is much better insulation but, even our newbuilds use far greater energy than those in comparable countries.

[Global CO2 emissions by sector – source UN Environmental Global Status Report 2017]

[Global CO2 emissions by sector – source UN Environmental Global Status Report 2017]

Is there then a material out there that we could use as a substitute for concrete, steel, brick and block? Yes: Timber! Scotland, Canada, the USA and the Nordic countries build 80 per cent of their family homes with timber frames. But England builds less than 20 per cent. Does it matter? Yes. Timber’s carbon footprint is considerably lower than most construction materials, plus it also stores carbon – a virtue that will be of increasing importance in achieving net zero.

Recent developments with a material known as engineered timber (or mass timber in North America) mean that it is now possible to build at height and at scale with timber in urban settings. Labour-led Hackney Council, has the largest concentration of engineered timber buildings in the world – including flats, offices, a cinema and a church.

[Murray Grove, Hackney, London - the world’s first modern engineered timber tower at nine storeys, built in 2009, Waugh Thistleton Architects]

[Murray Grove, Hackney, London – the world’s first modern engineered timber tower at nine storeys, built in 2009, Waugh Thistleton Architects]

Professor Michael Ramage of the University of Cambridge calculated that erecting a 300-square-metre, four-storey student residence in wood generated only 126 tonnes of CO2 emissions. If it had been made with concrete the tally would have risen to 310 tonnes. If steel had been used emissions would have topped 498 tonnes. Indeed, the building can be viewed as “carbon negative” as there is the equivalent of 540 tonnes of CO2 stored in the wood, resulting in a long-term subtraction of CO2 from the atmosphere.

A switch to building more with wood rightly raises questions around the supply of sustainable timber, forests, biodiversity, land availability, fire risk and timber builds. I have set out to answer these questions  in detail in my forthcoming book Timber! How wood can help save the world from climate breakdown. Suffice to say the construction industry can provide answers to these questions.  

Hopefully a Labour government will be up for the switch to timber for the sake of the climate. If so, what should they do to encourage a greater use of timber in construction? Six specific steps should be promoted by an incoming Labour government:

1. Implement the Environmental Audit Committee’s proposal to legislate for mandatory whole-life carbon assessment of all new buildings, including the amount of stored carbon, as part of the planning permission process.

2. Set maximum standards for the carbon footprints of new builds and their energy use, which can then be tightened over time as we aim for net zero in 2050.

3. Incentivise the use of nature-based materials such as timber in construction, including insulation, in part by recognising that the storage of carbon in buildings is a climate benefit.

4. Facilitate education about the use of nature-based materials across the whole of the construction-value chain.

5. Increase the home-grown sustainable wood supply by increasing commercial forest planting.

6. Implement the current government’s 2023 Timber in Construction Roadmap which includes working with industry and academia to identify opportunities and barriers to the use of timber in retrofit and promote best practice and innovation by 2027.

Labour is right to state that there is no magic money tree. There is, however – when it comes to tackling climate breakdown – a magic timber tree. A Labour government can deliver the homes the country desperately needs, and at the same time turn the built environment into a carbon sink rather than a carbon emitter. A win-win for Labour, the country and the climate.

[There are 1,000 tonnes of carbon safely stored in the timber used to construct the new Founder’s Building at the University of Washington. This climate benefit was recognised, monetised and sold for $150,000].

[There are 1,000 tonnes of carbon safely stored in the timber used to construct the new Founder’s Building at the University of Washington. This climate benefit was recognised, monetised and sold for $150,000].

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Timber! How wood can help save the world from climate breakdown will be published in June 2024 and can be pre-ordered https://www.waterstones.com/book/timber/paul-brannen/9781788217354

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Delivering 1.5m homes:  Why we need a diverse and competitive housebuilding industry

The UK has a huge backlog of housing need, with the effects of this rippling across our society.  Studies in 2018-19 suggested that there where over 4.75m households in need of suitable housing, with recent updates outlining the need for an additional 60-70,000 social rented homes per year, rising to 80-90,000 by 2030.  Beyond this, many argue that we should be adding 300,000 homes in total to our housing stock each year. This is something Labour are committed to, in the delivery of 1.5m additional homes over the next parliament.

But we need to wake-up to the scale of this change. Over the last five years we have added under 16,000 social rented homes a year across England, Scotland and Wales. Net additional homes in England have been below 250,000 for well over 20 years and new housing completions across the UK have not exceeded 300,000 per year for over four decades[1].

In sum, we are miles off Labour’s supply targets, and to get there would take a radical long-term approach far beyond the proposals presented so far.  Assuming the proposals around planning reform, land compensation and compulsory purchase, and the creation of new towns, all deliver significantly more land for development within five years – something we are justified in being sceptical about – one fundamental issue would remain. Who will produce these homes?

At present, over 40 per cent of new homes are built by just eight housebuilding firms, as the market share of SME developers has shrunk over several decades.  In contrast to Germany, where over 50 per cent of homes are self-build, or directly commissioned by future residents, the equivalent supply here in the UK is just 7 per cent.

This matters for a number of reasons. Firstly, to create 300,000 new homes a year we will need to ramp-up of delivery by lots of different producers, in order to meet the varied housing needs that exist.  Secondly, as explained in the recent Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) report on housebuilding, diversity of supply affects the speed at which homes are built-out, and therefore how fast you can add new supply. The greater the diversity of housing types, the quicker the market ‘absorbs’ them. Thirdly, as stated again by the CMA, the particular brand of speculative housebuilding we have in the UK is problematic, and not only in terms of the level of supply we get, but also in terms of its effect on prices and the extraction of value.  Value extraction through dividends and other shareholder returns represents lost investment, or more precisely, lost homes.  There are other factors that affect new supply, with the CMA at pains to stress the dysfunctions in our planning system, but far too often the nature of speculation in our housing system, and associated capital flows, are overlooked.

Over the past few decades, large UK housebuilders have changed markedly, particularly in terms of who owns them and how they are governed. The largest shareholdings in our big housebuilders are now largely held by global asset managers who, when studied, seem to extract more capital from these firms than they impart into the wider housing supply system. When we case studied one of the biggest shareholders in our PLC housebuilders we saw investments of £45m to support new housing production in a given year, but this was eclipsed by capital returns of £158m.

In our recent report, The Invisible Hand That Keeps On Taking, we showed that in 2005 the eight largest housebuilders paid out 16 per cent of pre-tax profits in dividends. This equated to just over £5,000 per home built. By 2022 their dividends were 47 per cent of profits, representing £22,000 per home. Dividends increased by 230 per cent in real terms, compared to new housing completions which rose just 23 per cent over the same time frame.  Dividends have been made possible by a long running period of ‘super-normal’ profitmaking, evidenced by the CMA’s analysis and our own research.  Whilst the claim is these super-normal profits are part of the ‘cyclical’ nature of housebuilding, and therefore just a feature of a boom period, we see that for twelve out of the last twenty years housebuilders have made super normal returns.  Only five of these years saw returns on capital below a ‘normal’ range.  We would argue that is a pretty favourable cycle, if indeed it is one. When we analyse changes in the costs per home built we see that this profitability has made possible, in part, by driving down land costs.

And herein lies the problem for Labour. Building 1.5m homes offers little time for slow market restructuring, to boost competition and production by different actors. And yet, reliance on the current market suggests completions will not rise at the rate required, largely because that would have a deflationary effect on the price of those homes, something which cannot be tolerated if your modus operandi is increasing margins rather than increasing volumes. 

So, what can be done?  Firstly, Labour should reorientate itself to targets on affordable homes, focusing its efforts on policy responses which boost affordable supply. If we cannot borrow more to increase funding for more affordable homes (as per the fiscal rules) then this should be achieved through targeted taxation or by capturing value elsewhere to reinvest.  Here it is instructive to note that between 2016-21, the UK government allocated £9bn in affordable housing grants in England, to create tens of thousands of new affordable homes. Over same period, the dividends of the eight biggest housebuilders equated to £11bn. And so just the dividend payments of a few companies exceeded government expenditure on affordable housing grants, and this does not factor in the other means of returning capital to shareholders that such companies engage in.

If there is surplus in this system, then it needs to be directed toward increased supply, or captured for the public purse to then be redirected.  Forms of taxation, and conditioning public funding and support for housebuilders, are just two means to do this.  If you are benefiting from public subsidy – for instance where a housebuilder is building homes funded with affordable housing grants – then you should adhere to certain requirements on the reinvestment of surpluses. If we can levy charges on housebuilders to remediate fire-safety issues, then perhaps we should be levying charges to help address critical housing need.

Beyond private housebuilding, there is much that can be done in policy terms to incentivise development by small and medium builders, self-builders, and community-led housing groups.  This could include incentives in the planning system, making better use of exception site policies, and creating presumptions in favour of these types of development.  Labour has had very little to say on this to-date, and it’s time to dedicate some proper policy attention to this issue, which can help us diversify the production system.

The hope is that in the rush to increase housing supply, we do not deepen the dysfunctions within our housebuilding system further, and instead we play the long game to radically shift who builds, and therefore who benefits.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-house-building