The building pledge comes as Chancellor Rachel Reeves reveals the Tories left Britain ‘broke and broken’ – and made ‘significant funding commitments’ without knowing how they would pay for them
Labour plans to usher in a housebuilding revolution with the biggest wave of new council and affordable housing in decades.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner will unveil measures on Tuesday to “turn the tide” of England’s dwindling social housing stocks. She will put affordable homes at the heart of the Government’s pledge to build 1.5 million houses in five years. And she will call on councils and other providers of social housing to help fix Britain’s housing crisis.
“For 14 long years, Tory self-interest prevented families across Britain from having access to safe, secure affordable homes,” Ms Rayner told us last night. “Turning the tide on a decade of stalled housebuilding and sluggish growth will be a hard slog but it’s already begun. We were elected on a mandate to build the homes that Britain needs.
“Delivering social and affordable houses at scale is not only my number one priority to ensure everyone has a secure roof over their head, it is also a crucial step on the path to 1.5 million homes, kickstarting our journey out of this slump.”
The drive for more homes has been backed by a new Labour Growth Group of MPs who have urged Keir Starmer to reform planning laws to “back the builders and not the blockers”.
One member of the group, Dover and Deal MP Mike Tapp, told us: “Revolutionary planning reform is crucial to creating homes and the infrastructure and public services we need to deliver our growth mission. I’m determined that we will deliver a new generation of council housing and develop communities with care and attention to the services they deserve.
“More housing and more infrastructure is at the heart of the ticket we were elected on.”
During the height of council building in the 1950s, local authorities built around 147,000 homes a year. Since the 1990s, the figure has dropped to a few thousand every year.
In 2022/23, just 41,000 new affordable homes for rent were delivered in England. Fewer than 10,000 were for social rent, which includes those built by councils and housing associations.
There are four million households in the social rented sector, and nearly 1.3 million households are on social housing waiting lists.
Meanwhile, housing stocks have dwindled following Tory changes to Right to Buy rules that boosted discounts to 70% in 2014.
The then-government promised to replace each home sold but, to date, just a third of the 124,000 sold since 2012 have been replaced.
Labour’s plan aims to reverse that decline, removing planning bottlenecks and announcing investment in social housing later in the year. Labour has already started to review the increase in discounts.
Councils will be given assurances on the rent levels they can charge – so they have the financial stability to borrow to build new homes.
A Labour source said: “The work to turn the tide on Tory failure and put an end to the housing crisis we’ve inherited has begun. This Labour Government has a mandate to build the homes people need and deliver the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation.
“Our manifesto commitment to build 1.5 million homes over this Parliament can only be reached by working together to deliver a mix of housing supply, including new affordable, social and council homes.”
Labour’s plan to allow building on so-called “grey belt” land will include a rule that half should be affordable housing.
The newly defined “grey belt” is green belt land which is seen as ugly or disused, including scrubland which has little natural value. The government will allow the development of such sites under strict rules.
And the forthcoming New Towns programme will have a target of 40% affordable housing.
Across the housing sector, just under 250,000 homes were built in 2019/20 and the figure is likely to fall below 200,000 this year.
Labour blamed the slump on the Conservatives being afraid of vested interests and the “blockers” among the Tories’ own membership
Ms Rayner added: “We knew our country was creaking in the eye of the storm but since taking office we’ve inspected the foundations and found they’ve been left to rot by Tory negligence. Housing is broken.
“The Tories were afraid of their own shadows, running from their own members and in the thrall to blockers.
“This Labour Government isn’t afraid of making hard decisions in the national interest to power growth in every part of the country.
“We’ll take the tough choices to unblock the planning system and make it a reality. When it comes to housebuilding, we will no longer be asking ‘if’, but ‘how’.”
The building pledge comes as Chancellor Rachel Reeves reveals the Tories left Britain “broke and broken” – and made “significant funding commitments” without knowing how they would pay for them.
Unveiling results of an audit of government departments tomorrow, Ms Reeves will “lift the bonnet” on a broken NHS, the shortage of teachers, the hollowed-out armed forces, record small boat crossings and destruction of our waterways. And she’ll warn that difficult decisions will be needed to start rebuilding the country.
A Treasury spokesman said: “The Chancellor will announce the immediate action the government is taking to fix the foundations of our economy, so we can rebuild Britain and make every part of our country better off.”
Ms Reeves will also set a date for the next budget – thought to be early October – and a multi-year spending review to restore stability to the economy.
And she’ll accuse former Chancellor Jeremy Hunt of admitting to dishonesty during the election campaign. Last week Mr Hunt confirmed his party would not have kept its promise to cut taxes.
A Labour source said: “The revealing admission from the former Chancellor shows tax cuts were dangled dishonestly in front of the public. That’s the level of contempt to which the Tories held working people, and it’s why the country chose change on July 4.
“Once again, it’s up to a Labour government to rebuild the country from a rubble of ruin after 14 years.”
The party’s manifesto pledged to build the next generation of new towns – inspired by those like Basildon and Stevenage built under the 1946 New Towns Act brought in by Labour. Labour also pledged to re-introduce housebuilding targets for local authorities – scrapped by Rishi Sunak after he faced a rebellion from Tory MPs. In May, Ms Rayner announced that Labour would select sites for the future new towns by the end of its first year in power.