Last month’s Labour landslide could lead to the biggest shake-up of the housing industry in decades. Let’s find out more.
Keir Starmer and the Labour Party’s massive victory in the July General Election will be seismic across several industries, such as renewables and transport. However, no sector will probably be more affected than housing. Starmer and his team see addressing the lack of new housing as a top priority, and they’re already taking steps to change things.
In this article, we’ll look at three ways Labour’s win might impact the housing industry. It’s a follow-up to our previous article previewing the General Election. You can decide if we were right or not. Let’s get started.
1 – New housebuilding targets
Probably the most eye-catching housing-related policy in Labour’s manifesto was a pledge to build 1.5 million new homes (in England) over the next five years. To put that into perspective, in the last full year (2023), just over 200,000 new houses were built.
The first step to hitting this ambitious target is updating the national policy planning framework. It will create mandatory housing targets for local areas. The idea is to create a generation of new towns, built on brownfield and even some greenbelt areas.
Reaching this figure will require an industry-wide effort, including a vast mobilisation across the construction industry, supply chains, recruitment and more.
2 – Planning reforms
Labour identifies England’s sluggish planning system as one of the reasons the country hasn’t been able to build enough houses over recent decades. Their remedy is to reform the planning system to take power away from the NIMBYs (Not In My Backyard) and encourage YIMBYs (Yes In My Backyard) instead.
The approach will be to give local authorities more power and support as they try to hit their housebuilding targets, including:
However, the new government maintains that it wants communities to still have a say in what new housing projects happen in their areas. It’s important that when new houses are built, the local infrastructure can support them.
3 – Rental changes
Finally, Labour is planning wholesale changes to the rental sector to give more power to tenants and raise standards across the board.
One eye-catching proposal is the abolition of Section 21 evictions. These so-called ‘no-fault’ evictions mean landlords evict their tenants with only two months’ notice in some situations. Taking away this power is promoted as giving tenants more security and stability.
Labour also plans to give renters more power to challenge rent increases and require landlords to fix health hazards within strict time limits.
Looking to the future
These policies are by no means the end of Labour’s proposed shake-up of the housing industry. The new government plans reforms of mortgages, including a ‘Freedom to Buy’ mortgage that helps first-time buyers get on the housing ladder with a smaller deposit. There will also be many environmental requirements to make Britain’s homes greener.
It’s been clear for many years that we don’t build enough homes in England. Too many people find themselves trapped in rentals because there isn’t enough new housing supply. It’s great to see the new government prioritising the housing industry and trying to address these issues at the start of its term.
Of course, just talking about housing reform is very different from actually doing it. There are bound to be obstacles they will need to navigate. It will require effort from across the industry, including technology providers like clixifix®. But we’re ready for the challenge.