In his speech to the Labour Party conference in Manchester, the Labour leader (pictured) said he would stop major developers sitting on land and back smaller house builders with new loans to get Britain building.
He restated Labour’s commitment to delivering 200,000 homes per year by 2020, and pledged to double the number of first-time buyers getting on to the housing ladder to 400,000 a year.
Mr Miliband said: “The confidence and security that comes from having your own home is missing for so many people in Britain today; that most British of dreams, the dream of home ownership, has faded. We will stop the large developers sitting on land and we will back the thousands of small developers and construction companies with access to new loans, there will be new towns, garden cities and suburbs with a half a million new homes.
Housing will be a top priority in our capital investment programme – this party will get Britain building again.”
The National Housing Federation and the Chartered Institute of Housing welcomed Labour’s long-term focus on housing but warned that all parties must commit to similar policies if the housing crisis is to be tackled.
David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, said: “We really welcome the ten year commitment to get house building moving and to invest in delivering new homes, but even 200,000 a year by the end of the next parliament won’t be enough after decades of building less than half of the homes we need.
We’re calling on all parties to commit to end the housing crisis within a generation. To end the crisis all politicians need to raise their sights and commit to the numbers of new homes that will genuinely meet the need that now exists.”
Grainia Long, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH), said: “We are currently building less than half the number of homes we need – the result is a housing crisis in which millions of people are being priced out of a decent home, whether that’s to rent or buy. So it is absolutely right that drastically increasing the number of homes we build is one of Labour’s main priorities.
We also welcome the recognition that tackling our housing crisis requires a long-term plan, and the focus on the sheer number of homes we need. And it is encouraging to hear that a Labour government would make housing a top priority for extra capital funding – one way of providing that funding would be to allow councils to borrow more, which would allow them to build 75,000 new homes over five years, creating 23,500 jobs and £5.6bn of economic activity.
Mr Miliband focused on home ownership and first-time buyers in his speech – but we would like all parties to recognise that we must also invest in homes for social and private rent if we are to effectively tackle the housing crisis that is causing misery for millions of people across the UK.”
