Eltham Labour Party

 

Housing Minister John Healy addresses the need for more affordable homes

In the recent pledge to Building Britain’s Future, Labour has set out its plan to invest £1.5 billion over the next two years into affordable housing, action that has become even more vital in times of an economic downturn.

John Healey explains how this investment is essential to help provide homes for people in greatest need in these times.  Provision has always been available for those in need with Housing Benefit or through social housing.  This gives tenants security and below market rents, but without the capital gain and the choices they offer.

Therefore social housing has become over time primarily for people in priority need like those people made homeless, have children, are over sixty, or have medical problems. This shortage of supply has happened at the same time as the loss of the most desirable properties through sale, bringing the number of affordable housing available down and the areas limited.

Therefore people in need of housing can lack the sufficient income to scrape together a deposit, or have had the chance of social housing even for temporary measures. Because of the lack of housing many people searched for other solutions. Of which the old solution people took instead were 100 percent mortgages, which can now be said as a thing of the past.

Mortgages will now have to remain at 75 or 80 percent, so people looking for their first home will have to pay a deposit, this means young couples and families looking to buy a home need support to take the first steps into the market.  Which makes affordable housing initiatives not just significant but essential to the role of helping people meet their housing needs.

Social housing needs reinventing to become not only a gateway for those in need but for those people who want to start buying, to be secure and decent homes for those who are unable to afford to buy, of which all can help remove the negative stigma associated with social housing.

This is how the extra £1.5 billion investment will go towards housing; 20,000 affordable and energy efficient homes, helping housing construction and communities, providing 45,000 new skilled jobs in the construction industry, and the stamp duty holiday to help the housing market get moving once again.  This will all be able to cover the much needed areas of housing in supply, stability and security.  And help first time buyers to get onto the market and create a level ground for all tenants to find affordable housing in all areas and not just Labour run constituencies.

However the Tories see housing in a rather different light to John Healey, in fact the complete opposite, as council tenants in Tory run constituencies like Hammersmith and Fulham have been faced with the proposals of their homes being demolished, making way for private housing developments in their place.  And they have been able to get away with plans like this because Tory Mayor of London Boris Johnson abolished the commitment to build 50% affordable housing.