A Labour pressure group wants the party to campaign on housing at the next General Election, including railing against what it calls “excessive rents”.
The Labour Party conference in October may be the last before the next General Election and is considered likely to be a showcase for party policies which may be campaign issues at the poll, which is widely expected next year.
The Labour Housing Group, an activist cohort within the party, is putting forward a so-called ‘model resolution’ to be adopted by local constituency Labour parties; if enough of them adopt the resolution, it will be debated at conference.
The model resolution is mostly a broad wishlist almost completely lacking in detail, but it makes a swipe at property conditions and rents early on.
The wording is:
“In a rich country like Britain, it is a major scandal that many people are dying because of poor housing conditions, such as damp and mould, or have no home at all.
“Many people cannot afford to heat their homes or pay an excessive proportion of their income on rent. Others fear poor fire-safety, live with dangerous cladding, or suffer under the feudal system that is leasehold.
“We know that only Labour can fix Britain’s broken housing system. Labour already has the policies to do this, and our Shadow Front Bench is working with leaders across all sectors to ensure that the essential human right to decent and genuinely affordable housing can become a reality for all.
“We need now to ensure every voter knows that transforming Britain’s housing will be a priority for the next Labour Government, especially as it underpins other priorities such as good health and social care, affordable living costs and achieving net zero.
“Annual Conference agrees that the Labour Party will make housing a winning issue at local and national levels by:
- Showing how things will be different under a Labour Government;
- Showing how we would develop an equitable, genuinely affordable, accountable, and sustainable housing system;
- Regularly promoting Labour’s policies for tackling housing failings that affect all tenures and ages, throughout the country.”
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“We know that only Labour can fix Britain’s broken housing system”.
More worrying comments. These silly lefties have no stake at all in rental properties but have BIG ideas about what to do with other peoples’ property and other peoples’ money.
Well, that is socialism for you Nick.
It's already like that in Scotland, that's why I'm getting out of the game..
Hard to establish the source of the leaks causing damp and mould in blocks. Cant access flats above to trace and occupiers above not willing to get repairs done when they are not affected by their leaks.
People need to understand, these excessive rents are due to excessive taxation, fees and interest rate rises. For the last 7 years, landlords have been selling, on average 35,000 more properties than they’ve been buying each year. Which is roughly one in every 5 sold properties do not come back to the rental market.
This number will rise significantly this year as the impact of the interest rate hike really bites those coming off their fixed rate mortgage deals. The only way to “fix” this is to significantly reduce the costs on landlords. They are leaving in their tens of thousands because it’s all risk and no reward now.
Rent controls will achieve nothing if there are no properties available to rent. No doubt, if Labour do get in though, they will bring in a further raft of draconian measures against landlords and then wonder why things have got even worse after promising to fix everything.
Look up Labour mps excessive expenses claims
David Lammy is a perfect example
His office in Tottenham costs more per sq ft than one in Mayfair !
That fool is another champagne socialist...
All those Policy’s were foretold by a junior (of Asian extraction) from the Department participating in a meeting at The Bridge Hotel 5 years ago when he mooted all this nonsense. He said we are writing it at the moment and it has happened exactly like he said, so the juniors behind the scenes have too much sway and no responsibility.
Labour struggle to put one foot in front of the other never mind this subject. Let us be clear the leader cannot tell a mush from a bird so what chance have any of us got...
There are about 1.7 million unfilled vacancies in the UK currently, so plenty of opportunity for hard pressed working renters to augment their income with second jobs.
In the early 80's my wife and I worked another 40 hours a week between us doing tutoring to afford our current house, unaffordable otherwise. Now people tell us how "lucky" we've been to accumulate our current portfolio and healthy rental income.
Landlords can only rent each property once so rents need to be viable or the property will be sold or become a short term rental property.
Does Labour want either of these options because that's the most likely outcome of their harassment of Landlords.
But you are of a different generation. The current lot want everything delivered to their homes all brand new. All on finance or paid for 'by others'. They don't do 2nd jobs. A lot don't even do 1 job. Increasingly more common with Universal Basic Income being looked at!!!!
Nick
You're absolutely right.
I had two kid's beds 160cm long rarely used by grandchildren and now outgrown.
I expected charities to refuse the perfectly good mattresses but they even refused the beds as every one on benefits gets everything brand new.
They were bought by middle class grandparents from Gumtree at £20 each, saving them about £150 per bed. Pity the working tax payers can't benefit from similar savings due to all the lefty do gooders!
I'm shocked people on benefits get everything brand new. They don't deserve it. Also they don't work for it so they don't appreciate it either...
I hate all the lefty do-gooders. All hell bent on destroying our country by stopping hard working people getting on. I do think about emigrating where I can take shelter somewhere more sensible!
Labour really scares me 👻 , I wouldn’t put it past them to bring in emergency measures like the SNP did, and then whilst we are effectively trapped….. bump up CGT to 45% 🫤
Yes, I have a major worry about CGT if Labour get in and they probably will.
No doubt they will definitely do something to make the tax more onerous, as if it isn't bad enough with the massive reduction of allowances under the Tories.
Suppose Labour had got in last time they couldn’t have got away with the dirty tricks Conservatives pulled on us.
However that’s in the past now and the dirty work is done for Labour all they need do is continue and tweak a bit here
& there. I think labour and the Country is in for a shock when more people realise what’s going on, throw in the towel and become labour’s customers joining the Benefit System then where does the money come from ?.
Politicians, --- campaigning about inflation and the cost of living, as if they can't do anything more productive to help the economy.
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