Labour reveals five step plan for housing including new help for first-time buyers
THE LABOUR Party has pledged a major shake up to housing including new help for struggling first-time buyers.
Sir Keir Starmer today launched his party's manifesto in Manchester with a swathe of proposed changes which would come into place if it wins the General Election next month.
The pamphlet confirmed the Labour Party would deliver the "biggest increase in social and affordable house building in a generation".
It added it would demand more from developers by shaking up planning obligations to ensure new developments provide more affordable homes.
The manifesto pledged to prioritise the building of new social rented homes and better protect existing stock by reviewing the increased right to buy discounts introduced in 2012.
Meanwhile, the document said it would work with local councils to offer first-time buyers the chance to buy homes and "end the farce of entire developments being sold off to international investors".
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The manifesto vowed to introduce a mortgage guarantee scheme to ensure first-time buyers can buy homes with lower deposit amounts.
It added Labour would ensure more housing stock is built without damaging the environment.
The 125-page document also confirmed the Labour Party will take "decisive action" to improve building safety through new regulation.
Meanwhile, it promised to review how to better protect leaseholders, who don't own the land they live on and can be stung with sky-high service charges and ground rent.
The document said it would bring an end to the "feudal" leasehold system and ban the construction of new leasehold flats.
It also said the party would tackle unregulated and "unaffordable" ground rent charges as well as "unfair" maintenance costs.
At the Labour manifesto launch, Sir Keir Starmer…
- Ruled out raising income tax, national insurance, or VAT
- Committed to keeping the pensions triple lock, which increases the state pension each year in line with the highest of inflation, earnings or 2.5%
- Promised a benefits shake-up, working with local authorities to get more disabled and sick people back into employment.
- Pledged to remove the ‘discriminatory’ age bands affecting the National Minimum Wage
- Vowed to ban advertising junk food to children along with the sale of high-caffeine energy drinks to under-16
- Promised to hike defence spending to 2.5% of GDP
- Promised to slap VAT on private schools to fund 6,500 new teachers
- Pledged to build 1.5million new homes
Labour's manifesto launch comes just two days after the Tory Party launched its own one.
Speaking at Silverstone race track, Rishi Sunak pledged to halve immigration and also offered help for first-time buyers.
The PM