Earlier this month, the Labour Party issued an 86-page policy handbook, setting out its draft programme for a Starmer government. Liz Davies explores what’s proposed on housing.

Labour’s National Policy Forum has released six policy documents, based on consultation earlier this year.

Housing falls under “A Future where families come first”. Some of it is welcome: detailed proposals to build more homes which are said to be “affordable” to buy, using the planning system to take on developers who hoard land, legislating so that councils can buy land at “existing use value” (which means the value of the land without an added premium for the possibility of obtaining planning permission for residential development, or “hope value”), looking to end leasehold and replace it with commonhold.

Lisa Nandy has also released a video stating the Party’s commitment to building more social homes, acknowledging that the country’s housing crisis cannot be solved without social housing. There are no figures: housing campaigners reckon that at least 90,000 social homes must be built a year in order to start to tackle the housing crisis. And the Party is not committed fully to ending “right to buy”, saying that it will decrease the number of social homes being rapidly sold off through right to buy without like-for-like new social housing being built to replace them – a statement which, read carefully, does not even commit to the previous promise of replacing each home sold under right to buy.

On private renting, the commitments are much the same as Michael Gove has just put forward in the Renters’ Reform Bill: greater security of tenure, ending s.21 no fault evictions, introducing a national register of landlords. There is a commitment to introduce a legally binding “Decent Homes Standard 2” for the private rented sector, which was originally part of the government’s Renters’ Reform package but is not in the published Bill.

On the level of rents, the document says only that Labour will “consult on how best to ensure tenancies are affordable.”. This falls short of the Renters’ Reform Bill, which contains a mechanism to cap rent increases – although only to market rent levels, not by reference to the CPI, so if rents rise more sharply than inflation, tenants will still lose out.

Labour’s proposals will disappoint the many voices calling for some form of rent regulation, not least Sadiq Khan who wants the power, as Mayor of London, to cap rent increases. It also does not commit Labour to ensuring that, whenever private landlords seek possession against their tenants, the Court must consider the tenant’s circumstances and have the flexibility available to come to a solution that might suit both parties (discretionary grounds for possession).

Labour says it will “tackle the scourge of homelessness and rough sleeping”, but it does not say how. It would be hoped that Labour would seek to emulate the Scottish government, which has abolished the priority need test for homelessness, and the Welsh government, which has effectively abolished the ‘becoming homeless intentionally’ test and is treating all rough sleepers as having a priority need, so they are housed. A kinder approach to “No Recourse to Public Funds”, so that those who are suddenly destitute can claim homelessness assistance and welfare benefits would also be welcome – but is missing.

Rights are meaningless if they cannot be enforced. Labour should commit to repealing the Coalition Government’s legal aid cuts in 2013, so that legal aid and legal advice on housing rights is widely available and accessible and tenants can receive legal aid in order to force their landlords to comply with legal standards.

Above all, the lack of a vision for housing is disappointing. The Labour Housing Group and the Labour Campaign for Human Rights have been lobbying for Labour to commit to the international human right of a “right to adequate housing”. This would mean that a Labour Government would work towards achieving decent, secure and affordable housing for everyone, including ending the scourge of homelessness. It would move this country away from housing being a commodity and entrench the idea that safe and secure housing is a basic right, available to all.

Liz Davies is a barrister specialising in housing and homelessness. She is a co-author of Housing Allocation and Homelessness: Law and Practice (Luba, Davies, Johnston & Buchanan, LexisNexis, 6^th ed, 2022). She is a member of the Society of Labour Lawyers and writes in a personal capacity.

Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/16801915@N06/35222420162. Creator: Reading Tom. Licence: Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)