Following the announcement by the Government of the intention to
publish a Social Housing Green Paper, the opposition
Labour Party have published a review of its policy on social
housing.
Over 70 individuals and organisations made submissions to the
Review including ARCH.
We submitted our ARCH policy statement "Social Housing We All Be
Proud Of" and on the 19 April 2018 the Labour Party
published the initial outcome of its Review in the form of a Green
Paper, Housing for the Many.
The document's central proposal is a commitment to build one
million genuinely affordable new homes over 10 years, of which the
majority will be for social rent, with the rest at a Living Rent
(defined as being no more than one third of average local incomes)
or for low-cost home ownership.
Amongst the key measures proposed in the Labour Party Green
Paper are:
- Establishment of a separate Department for Housing with a
Secretary of State with Cabinet membership, together with an
OBR-style Office for Housing Delivery, with a specific remit to
monitor and audit delivery of the affordable housing
programme.
- The suspension of the Right-to-Buy with councils only allowed
to reinstate it if they had a proven plan to replace homes sold on
a one-for-one, like-for-like basis and the proposed Higher Value
Asset levy would be scrapped.
- The lifting of caps on HRA borrowing to prudential limits, and
a review of the way this borrowing is recorded in the national
account;
- Scrapping of the bedroom tax, protect housing benefit for
under-21s and a proposal to "pause and fix" Universal Credit;
- A new "Decent Homes 2" programme, to be completed within 5
years, would include a new fire-safety standard to add to the
existing four Decent Homes criteria, including retro-fitting
sprinklers in all high-rise blocks.
A number of measures are proposed to strengthen the rights and
power of tenants including proposals to:
- Consult on and set up and support an independent national
organisation and a Commission to give tenants a stronger
voice;#
- consult on a duty for housing associations to have tenant
representatives on their boards and consider how to improve the
representation of council tenants in governance arrangements;
- consult on strengthening the regulatory regime to improve
consumer standards and the involvement of tenants;
- reform the system of complaints and redress and consult on
plans for a single housing Ombudsman;
- scrap the potential ban on long-term council tenancies;
- clarify the law to make sure that councils can offer homes to
local people first without facing challenge in the courts;
- clampdown on illegal sub-letting and right-to-buy fraud;
- look at ways of improving access to legal aid in housing
cases;
- drop the currently-proposed reforms to the funding of supported
housing and work with the housing sector on a new plan for
long-term funding, while encouraging the provision of more homes
for older and disabled people.
A copy of the Labour Party Affordable Housing Review and Green
Paper "Housing for the Many" is available to download here and ARCH Policy Adviser Matthew Warburton
has produced an ARCH Briefing Paper summarising the main
points.
The Labour Party have highlighted a number of questions in their
document to which responses are invited and the ARCH Executive
Board will be considering its response at its next meeting on 21
May.