The Labour Campaign for Council Housing is asking Labour Parliamentary candidates to sign our Council Housing Pledge. It focuses on the government action required to produce a renaissance of council housing, without which there can be no resolution of the housing crisis.

 The Labour Campaign for Council Housing calls for a Labour government to commit to

• Funding the building/acquisition of 100,000 social rent council homes a year
• Ending the disastrous Right to Buy policy
• Ending “flexible tenancies” and giving all council tenants secure tenancies
• Funding the retrofitting and decarbonisation of existing council housing
• Ending above-inflation rent increases
• Funding housing revenue accounts sufficiently to maintain and improve the standard of housing and the living conditions of tenants.

None of these things are in Labour’s Manifesto, so we need to build the broadest possible campaign when Labour is in government to press for these policies. Shadow Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook has said Labour will not increase the current parsimonious funding available in the Tories’ Affordable Homes Programme. In contrast the Local Government Association (which includes Labour’s own councillors), in its recent White Paper, which is directed at the next government, calls for

• “An increase in Affordable Homes Programme (AHP) grant levelsper unit”;
• “A programme of 100,000 high-quality, climate friendly social homesa year; 
• “Strengthened Housing Revenue Accountsvia a long-term rent settlement and restoration of lost revenue due to rent cap/cuts”.

There is a wide range of organisations which will be pressing a Labour government to carry out measures like these, from Shelter and other housing campaigns, to tenant organisations and the trades unions. 

Labour’s focus should be on social rent housing. The building oligopoly, the big builders and developers, will never build on a scale that could push down prices. They build at a pace and scale to maximise their profits. They have no interest in resolving the housing crisis. 

So we are asking people to call on their Labour parliamentary candidates to sign the Council Housing Pledge. Try to talk to yours, ask them to sign the pledge, let us know what they say.

As the 2019 and 2021 Labour Conferences voted, we need to fund the building/acquisition of 100,000 council homes a year, end the disastrous Right to Buy policy and fund the retrofitting and decarbonisation of existing council housing.

Image: Council housing estate on Deepdale Road, Breightmet. Source: Geograph Britain and Ireland. Author: Bill Boaden, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.