What do the two main parties
plan for the housing market over the next 5 years?
This week both Labour and the Conservatives released their election
manifesto for 2015. We wanted to see what the two main parties plan for the
housing sector in the next 5 years. We have compiled all of the information
directly from each party’s manifesto where they analyse what they will look to achieve
over the following 5 years.
The Conservatives
We will double the number of first-time buyers, and help more people
own their own home
·
We will extend Help to Buy to cover another
120,000 homes
·
We will continue the Help to Buy mortgage
guarantee until the start of 2017, and the Help to Buy equity loan until at
least 2020
·
From this autumn, we will introduce a new Help
to Buy ISA to support people who are working hard to save up for a deposit for
their first home. A ten per cent deposit on the average first home costs
£15,000, so if you put in up to £12,000, government will put in up to £3,000
more. A 25 per cent top-up is equivalent to saving a deposit from your pre-tax
income – making it effectively a tax cut for first-time buyers.
We will build 200,000 Starter Homes and more affordable housing
·
We will build 200,000 quality Starter Homes over
the course of the next Parliament, reserved for first-time buyers under 40 and
sold at 20 per cent below the market price
·
We will now go further, delivering 275,000
additional affordable homes by 2020. And we will offer 10,000 new homes to rent
at below market rates to help people save for a deposit
We will extend the Right to Buy to tenants in Housing Associations
·
We will fund the replacement of properties sold
under the extended Right to Buy by requiring local authorities to manage their
housing assets more efficiently, with the most expensive properties sold off
and replaced as they fall vacant.
·
We will also create a Brownfield Fund to unlock
homes on brownfield land for additional housing.
We will give you the Right to Build
·
We aim at least to double the number of
custom-built and self-built homes by 2020, and we will take forward a new Right
to Build, requiring councils to allocate land to local people to build or
commission their own home, as you can do in most of Europe.
We will protect the Green Belt
·
We have safeguarded national Green Belt
protection and increased protection of important green spaces
We will support locally-led garden cities and towns and prioritise
brownfield development, making sure new homes are always matched by the
necessary infrastructure to support them
·
When new homes are granted planning permission,
we will make sure local communities know up-front that necessary infrastructure
such as schools and roads will be provided.
·
We will ensure that brownfield land is used as
much as possible for new development.
·
We will require local authorities to have a
register of what is available, and ensure that 90 per cent of suitable
brownfield sites have planning permission for housing by 2020.
·
We will fund Housing Zones to transform
brownfield sites into new housing, which will create 95,000 new homes
We will help keep your council taxes low
·
We will encourage voluntary integration of
services and administration between and within councils – for example, with the
Troubled Families Programme and the Better Care Fund – to promote savings and
improve local services.
·
We want local councils to help manage public
land and buildings, and will give them at least a 10 per cent stake in public
sector land sales in their area.
Labour
We will make sure that at least 200,000 homes a year get built by 2020
To help young people and families get on the housing ladder, we will
give local authorities the power to give first call to first time buyers on new
homes in areas of housing growth. And we will unlock a Future Homes Fund by
requiring that the billions of pounds saved in Help to Buy ISAs be invested in
increasing housing supply.
We will increase competition in the housebuilding industry by backing
small builders, including through our Help to Build scheme, and by getting the
public sector building again.
We will build more affordable homes by prioritising capital investment
for housing and by reforming the council house financing system.
We will give local authorities powers to reduce the number of empty
homes, including higher council tax on long term empty properties. And to boost
the housing we need, we will start to build a new generation of garden cities.
For the 11 million people who rent privately, we will legislate to make
three-year tenancies the norm, with a ceiling on excessive rent rises. A ban on
unfair letting agent fees will save renters over £600. We will drive standards
up by creating a national register of private landlords.