The UK’s main political parties this week set out their general election manifestos, including their plans for housing. Here is our at-a-glance guide to the key policies.

The Labour Party

Under the single word title ‘Change’, Labour’s election manifesto sets out plans to:

  • Provide 1.5 million new homes over the next parliament by:

– Updating the National Policy Planning Framework, including restoring mandatory housing targets

– Ensuring planning authorities have up-to-date local plans and reform and strengthen the presumption in favour of sustainable development

– Supporting local authorities by funding additional planning officers, through increasing the rate of the stamp duty surcharge paid by non-UK residents

– Ensuring local communities continue to shape housebuilding in their area, but not be afraid to make full use of intervention powers to build the houses we need

– Taking a brownfield first approach, prioritising the development of previously used land wherever possible, and fast-tracking approval of urban brownfield sites

– Taking a more strategic approach to greenbelt land designation and release to build more homes in the right places. The release of lower quality ‘grey belt’ land will be prioritised and we will introduce ‘golden rules’ to ensure development benefits communities and nature

– Building a new generation of new towns. Alongside urban extensions and regeneration projects, these will form part of a series of large-scale new communities across England

– Introducing new mechanisms for cross-boundary strategic planning that will require all Combined and Mayoral Authorities to strategically plan for housing growth in their areas

– Reforming compulsory purchase compensation rules to improve land assembly, speed up site delivery, and deliver housing, infrastructure, amenity, and transport benefits in the public interest

– Taking steps to ensure that for specific types of development schemes, landowners are awarded fair compensation rather than inflated prices based on the prospect of planning permission

  • Deliver the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation by:

– Strengthening planning obligations to ensure new developments provide more affordable homes

– Making changes to the Affordable Homes Programme to ensure that it delivers more homes from existing funding

– Supporting councils and housing associations to build their capacity and make a greater contribution to affordable housing supply

– Prioritising the building of new social rented homes and better protect our existing stock by reviewing the increased right to buy discounts introduced in 2012 and increasing protections on newly built social housing

  • Take steps to ensure we are building more high-quality, well-designed, and sustainable homes and creating places that increase climate resilience and promote nature recovery
  • Implement solutions to unlock the building of homes affected by nutrient neutrality without weakening environmental protections
  • Work with local authorities to give first-time buyers the first chance to buy homes and end the farce of entire developments being sold off to international investors before houses are even built
  • Introduce a permanent, comprehensive mortgage guarantee scheme, to support first-time buyers who struggle to save for a large deposit, with lower mortgage costs
  • Invest an extra £6.6 billion over the next parliament to upgrade five million homes to cut bills for families:

– The Warm Homes Plan will offer grants and low interest loans to support investment in insulation and other improvements such as solar panels, batteries and low carbon heating to cut bills

– Work with the private sector, including banks and building societies, to provide further private finance to accelerate home upgrades and low carbon heating

– Ensure homes in the private rented sector meet minimum energy efficiency standards by 2030

  • Overhaul the regulation of the private rented sector by:

– Immediately abolishing Section 21 ‘no-fault’ evictions

– Preventing private renters being exploited and discriminated against by empowering them to challenge unreasonable rent increases

– Taking steps to decisively raise standards including extending ‘Awaab’s Law’ to the private sector

  • Take decisive action to improve building safety, including through regulation, by:

– Reviewing how to better protect leaseholders from costs and take steps to accelerate the pace of remediation across the country

– Ensuring those responsible for the building safety crisis pay to put it right

  • Bring the feudal leasehold system to an end by:

– Enacting the package of Law Commission proposals on leasehold enfranchisement, right to manage and commonhold

– Taking further steps to ban new leasehold flats and ensure commonhold is the default tenure

– Tackling unregulated and unaffordable ground rent charges

– Bringing the injustice of ‘fleecehold’ private housing estates and unfair maintenance costs to an end

  • Develop a new cross-government strategy, working with mayors and councils across the country, to put Britain back on track to ending homelessness.

The Conservative Party

Under the manifesto banner ‘Clear Plan, Bold Action, Secure Future’, the Conservatives have pledged to:

  • Deliver 1.6 million homes in England in the next parliament by:
  • Abolishing the legacy EU ‘nutrient neutrality’ rules
  • Building a record number of homes each year on brownfield land in urban areas by providing a fast-track route through the planning system for new homes on previously developed land
  • Raising density levels in inner London to those of European cities like Paris and Barcelona
  • Unlocking new urban regeneration schemes, by creating locally-led urban development corporations
  • Supporting local and smaller builders by requiring councils to set land aside for them and lifting Section 106 burdens on more smaller sites
  • Making sure local authorities use the new Infrastructure Levy to deliver the GP surgeries, roads and other local infrastructure needed to support homes
  • Renewing the Affordable Homes Programme that will deliver homes of all tenures and focus on regenerating and improving housing estates
  • Retaining the commitment to protect the Green Belt from uncontrolled development, while ensuring more homes get built where it makes sense
  • Make permanent the increase to the threshold at which first-time buyers pay Stamp Duty to £425,000 from £300,000
  • Launch a new and improved Help to Buy scheme to provide first-time buyers with an equity loan of up to 20% towards the cost of a new build home
  • Legislate for new ‘Local Connection’ and ‘UK Connection’ tests for social housing in England
  • Evict tenants whose behaviour is disruptive to neighbours and the local community
  • Introduce a two-year temporary Capital Gains Tax relief for landlords who sell to their existing tenants.
  • Complete the process of leasehold reform, to improve the lives of over four million leaseholders
  • Pass a Renters Reform Bill that will deliver fairness in the rental market for landlords and renters alike
  • Continue with plans to end rough sleeping
  • Continue with support for leaseholders affected by historic building safety problems
  • Ensure councils have the powers they need to manage the uncontrolled growth of holiday lets
  • Support those who want to build or commission their own home by making the planning process simpler
  • Speed up the use and enforcement of powers to remove illegal traveller sites.

The Liberal Democrats

Published as part of its ‘For A Fair Deal’ election manifesto, the Liberal Democrats are committed to:

  • Increasing building of new homes to 380,000 a year across the UK, including 150,000 social homes a year, through new garden cities and community-led development of cities and towns
  • Delivering a fair deal for renters by immediately banning no-fault evictions, making three-year tenancies the default, and creating a national register of licensed landlords
  • Giving local authorities, including national park authorities, the powers to end Right to Buy in their areas
  • Ending rough sleeping within the next Parliament and immediately scrapping the archaic Vagrancy Act
  • Abolishing residential leaseholds and capping ground rents to a nominal fee, so that everyone has control over their property
  • Expanding Neighbourhood Planning across England
  • Building 10 new garden cities
  • Allowing councils to buy land for housing based on current use value rather than on a hope-value basis by reforming the Land Compensation Act 1961
  • Properly funding local planning departments to improve planning outcomes and ensure housing is not built in areas of high flood risk without adequate mitigation, by allowing local authorities to set their own fees
  • Encouraging the use of rural exception sites to expand rural housing
  • Trialling Community Land Auctions to ensure that local communities receive a fair share of the benefits of new development in their areas and to help fund vital local services
  • Encouraging development of existing brownfield sites with financial incentives and ensuring that affordable and social housing is included in these projects
  • Introducing ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ planning permission for developers who refuse to build
  • Putting the construction sector on a sustainable footing by investing in skills, training and new technologies such as modern methods of construction
  • Ensure that all development has appropriate infrastructure, services and amenities in place, integrating infrastructure and public service delivery into the planning process
  • Make homes warmer and cheaper to heat with a 10-year emergency upgrade programme, and ensure that all new homes are zero-carbon, as set out in chapter 5
  • Remove dangerous cladding from all buildings, while ensuring that leaseholders do not have to pay a penny towards it
  • Help people who cannot afford a deposit to own their own homes by introducing a new Rent to Own model for social housing where rent payments give tenants an increasing stake in the property, owning it outright after 30 years
  • Give local authorities new powers to control second homes and short-term lets in their areas
  • Protect the rights of social renters by:
  • Proactively enforcing clear standards for homes that are socially rented, including strict time limits for repairs
  • Fully recognising tenant panels so that renters have a voice in landlord governance
  • End rough sleeping within the next parliament by:
  • Urgently publishing a cross-Whitehall plan to end all forms of homelessness
  • Exempting groups of homeless people, and those at risk of homelessness, from the Shared Accommodation Rate
  • Introducing a ‘somewhere safe to stay’ legal duty to ensure that everyone who is at risk of sleeping rough is provided with emergency accommodation and an assessment of their needs
  • Ensuring sufficient financial resources for local authorities to deliver the Homelessness Reduction Act and provide accommodation for survivors of domestic abuse.

The Green Party

Under its ‘Real Hope, Real Change’ manifesto banner, the Green Party has set out plans for:

  • A ‘Right Homes, Right Place, Right Price Charter’ that will:
  • Require local authorities to spread small developments across their areas
  • Require all new developments to be accompanied by the extra investment needed in local health, transport and other services
  • Ensure that all new homes meet Passivhaus or equivalent standards and house builders include solar panels and heat pumps on all new homes, where appropriate.
  • A ‘Fairer, Greener Homes Guarantee’ that will invest:
  • £29bn over the next five years to insulate homes to an EPC B standard or above as part of a ten-year programme
  • £4bn over the next five years to insulate other buildings to a high standard
  • £9bn over the next five years for low-carbon heating systems (e.g. heat pumps) for homes and other buildings
  • Provide 150,000 new social homes every year through:
  • New build and the purchase/refurbishment of older housing stock
  • A community right to buy for local authorities for several categories of property
  • Ending the individual ‘right to buy’, to keep social homes for local communities in perpetuity.
  • A ‘Fair Deal for Renters’ that will push for:
  • Rent controls so local authorities can control rents if the rental market is unaffordable for many local people
  • A new stable rental tenancy and an end to no-fault evictions so tenants are secure in their homes and don’t have their lives turned upside down on the whim of their landlords
  • A tenants’ right to demand energy efficiency improvements
  • Private residential tenancy boards to provide an informal, cheap and speedy forum for resolving disputes before they reach a tribunal.

Reform UK

Reform will officially launch their election manifesto next week but here are the draft housing pledges:

  • Review the planning system:

– Fast track planning and tax incentives for development of brownfield sites, including unused offices and vacant high street properties

– Review system of Section 106 Developer Contributions for infrastructure such as schools and surgeries to accelerate house building

  • Reform social housing law by prioritising local people and those who have paid into the system
  • Scrap the 2019 tax changes for landlords to encourage smaller landlords into the rental markets
  • Abolish the Renters (Reform) Bill
  • Incentivise use of new construction technology
  • New apprenticeships and vocational trades courses to increase the supply of skilled, well-paid workers to replace cheap overseas labour.