One year ago, we asked the question ‘but what will Labour do differently?’ on housing ahead of the 2024 general election. Ahead of the polls, Labour was making substantial promises around its housing plans. 1.5 million homes, a generational boost in social housing, as well as fixing fundamentally flawed tenures in the private rented sector and leasehold among other promises gave hope to a sector which had been so neglected under the Conservatives.
While Labour’s first year in Government has been challenging, with difficulties at home and greater uncertainty abroad, few would have expected that it would get so much done in its first year on housing.
At the first anniversary of the election, now marks the perfect opportunity to review all that Labour has achieved in housing since entering Government, as well as looking ahead to what the next year could hold.
The road to 1.5 million homes
The Government’s flagship policy on housing was its pledge to build 1.5 million homes in this Parliament. And, while figures in industry, and even the Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook, have admitted that this is likely a stretch target, the progress which the Government has made will set the UK on a permanent path to delivering more homes.
Shortly after the election, the Government set out addressing issues with individual sites, reversing ministerial vetos on individual sites such as around Liverpool Docks (1), and establishing a New Homes Accelerator to take direct action on individual sites (2). This has also been partnered with a new subsidiary of Homes England, the National Housing Bank, with £16 billion of capital leveraging an additional £53 billion of private investment to build half a million homes (3).
Crucial to this has been making the planning system more favourable to delivering more homes at greater speed. This has involved updating the NPPF to restore housing targets (4), to reallocate low-quality ‘grey belt’ land for new homes (5), and to mandate that local authorities have a 5-year land supply and a local plan (6), the Government has undergone a number of ambitious steps in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. This has included modernising planning committees to empower councillors to deliver better-quality projects (7), delegating more decisions to officers to allow for more rules-based planning decisions (8), and streamlining planning for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs), so that homes are not left without critical infrastructure (9). This work is supported by the recruitment of an additional 300 planning officers to improve capacity in local authorities (10).
Nor are the Government’s changes purely a charter for large developers, and they have included mandating faster build-out rates to prevent developers from a ‘slow-build’ approach to prioritise profit over homes (11). More support has also been provided for SME builders through establishing a new ‘medium site’ category with reduced planning rules (12), setting aside more Homes England land for smaller builders (13) and establishing a Small Sites Aggregator to unlock small sites which otherwise would not be developed (14).
However, reaching 1.5 million homes cannot be reached through planning alone, and the Government has also been active in ensuring that there is a sustainable workforce to produce the homes that we need. This has included setting up Skills England, a national body for addressing the skills shortage (15), setting aside an additional £600 million for construction sector skills (16), and establishing a Construction Skills Mission Board with an aim of recruiting an additional 100,000 new construction workers per year (17).
Key to the Government’s long-term plans are also New Towns, and while there were fears before the election that these would be unfeasible, not only did has the Government set up a New Towns Taskforce (18), but they identified 100 sites for these, with work due to start on at least 12 before the next election (19).
(See more on what the Government is doing to address the skills shortage from Lauren Edwards MP)
(See more on the Government’s plans for New Towns from Shaun Davies MP)
A generational boost to social and affordable housing
While boosting housing supply is critical, it is social and affordable homes which are most crucially needed for those with greatest housing need. While the last Government allowed 120,000 homes to be sold through the Right to Buy, Labour has already curtailed this, not only reducing discounts severely (20), and announcing that newbuild social homes will be exempt from the Right to Buy for 35 years and that social tenants will have had to have lived in their home for 10 years before being eligible (21).
Not only has the Government stopped the outflow of social homes, but they have meaningfully set the groundwork to increasing the delivery of more social homes, through instructing Homes England to direct funding primarily to social homes (22), and reforming Compulsory Purchase Orders in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill to allow local authorities to buy land at existing use price rather than inflated ‘hope value’ for social housing (23). Finally, increasing the funding for social housing featured prominently at all of the Government’s major fiscal moments, with £500madded to the Affordable Homes Programmein the Autumn Budget (24), £2 billionat the Spring Statement (25), before an increase of 50% from the Conservatives’ Affordable Homes Programme to spend £39 billion on affordable homes in the recent Spending Review (26). This is combined projected to increase social housebuilding sixfold, building 300,000 new social and affordable homes over the next decade, 60% of which will be at social rent.
Finally, housing associations and local authorities have been supported to have greater financial stability, not only by being included in Government funding for cladding remediation (27), but providing greater certainty of social rent, with a ten-year rent settlement to bring social rents back to 2015 levels in real terms, and plans for social rent convergence so that artificially reduced rents are brought up to standard (28).
Improving the quality of existing stock
While delivering new homes is crucial, critical issues with our existing housing stock persist, particularly in larger blocks and in social housing. This is somewhere where the Government has taken direct action, implementing Awaab’s Law into social housing later this year (29), and setting out plans for a new Decent Homes Standard for social and private rented homes (30), alongside a first-ever Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard in social rented homes (31).
The Government has also established a plan to act on all 58 recommendations of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry (32), including introducing a single construction sector regulator. This has been alongside setting out a Remediation Acceleration Plan to fast-track the vital work to address building safety defects on high rise buildings (33).
The Government has also put their money where their mouth is on housing quality, setting aside £13.2bn for a Warm Homes Plan to bring 300,000 homes up to EPC C level (34).
Read more about the Government’s plans for building safety from Darren Paffey MP)
Fixing flawed tenures
The 4.7 million private renters and 5.3 million leaseholders in England and Wales know well that the arcane rules governing their own homes are in stark need of reform. And the Government has recognised this, launching a bold programme to fix these tenures.
In the private rented sector, the Government is on the verge of passing the Renters’ Rights Bill. Not only will this outlaw ‘no-fault’ Section 21 evictions (35), it will outlaw rental bidding wars (36), introduce a mandatory private rental sector database (37).
The Bill contains a myriad of other improvements, from the right to request a pet (38), to capping rent advances at one month (39), as well as establishing rent tribunals for tenants to charge unreasonable increases (40), but a list of 50 achievements could likely include reforms from the Renters’ Rights Bill.
Meanwhile, the Government has set out plans to implement their predecessor’s rushed Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act (41), as well as fast-tracking reforms to the Right to Manage to ensure that leaseholders can hire and fire their managing agents with greater ease (42). The Government has also published a Commonhold White Paper (43), with plans to publish a full Leasehold and Commonhold Bill later this year (44), with a range of commitments already made, including mandatory qualifications for managing agents (45).
Addressing homelessness head-on
The most immediate symptom of the housing crisis is that of homelessness and rough sleeping, with the number of families in temporary accommodation reaching 126,400under the Conservatives.
The Government has acted here head-on, not only setting a Cross-Government Taskforce on Homelessness chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister (46), but putting their money where their mouth is, with a £1 billion boost to funding at the Autumn Budget (47). Attempts are also being made to address the use of bed and breakfasts as temporary accommodation with Emergency Accommodation Reduction Pilots in the 20 local authorities with the highest B&B usage (48).
While the recommendations of this taskforce are still to be seen, a number of crucial steps have already been taken. These have included exempting care leavers and survivors of domestic abuse from punitive ‘local connection tests’ for local authority housing support to ensure that they can receive critical help to prevent homelessness (49), and establishing a commitment to repealing the cruel and outdated Vagrancy Act in the Spring of 2026 to finally decriminalise rough sleeping (50).
Check out more on tackling temporary accommodation from Naushabah Khan MP)
Looking ahead: what do we need in Year 2?
Despite this progress, the Government cannot rest on their laurels, particularly with the number of new starts on site decreasing, the numbers of households in temporary accommodation on the rise, and rents continuing to increase in the PRS.
A lot of the achievements on this list, while laudable, consist of plans, targets and goal-setting. While this is undoubtedly needed in the first year of a new Government, tracking their progress and ensuring their implementation is key.
When it comes to new rights in leasehold and the private rental sector, resourcing needs to be provided to local authorities, regulators, and the First Tier Tribunal to take the increased caseload, and any gaps and loopholes need to be carefully monitored.
Moreover, blocks to delivering new homes, particularly social and affordable homes, need to be reviewed and analysed in-depth. Concerns continue to be raised with the Building Safety Regulator, as well as with viability rules and the difficulty of delivering social homes on brownfield sites. Reforms to these to enable faster delivery of homes from registered providers may well be needed to meet the Government’s housing ambitions.
Finally, while the Government has undoubtedly done a great deal of work in these areas across this year on fixing the housing crisis, more needs to be done to make the political case that these changes will actually improve voters’ lives. Even if all of Labour’s housing goals are met, showing that a slower increase in rents or prices, or slightly faster movement in social housing waiting lists, is down to the Government of the day is difficult at the best of times, and even more challenging in a competitive multi-party system. The Government needs to identify a compelling housing story to tell which links together all 50 of these accomplishments, and really sells it to voters, not just for its own sake, but to achieve a long-term political consensus for sustained housing action.
One year in, and the Labour Government is moving with remarkable speed and ambition to fix the housing crisis, proving that, when it comes to housing, change is being delivered. What this change amounts to could well be decisive both politically and substantively for Labour’s legacy.