Lisa Nandy in her charm offensive with the Telegraph said that Labour had “taken on and called out” those on the Left who argue that “homeownership is not a Labour thing to do”, which was “completely wrong”. Ownership of assets was the “biggest and most consequential divide” in the country, she said, with the recognition of that fact marking a “fundamental break” with “where Labour has been in recent times”.
This is nothing other than Nandy’s straw man, set up to show that Tories really have nothing to fear from a Labour government. Who are these people opposed to home ownership? Where had Labour been “in recent times”? Was Labour under Corbyn opposed to homeownership? The 2019 Manifesto said this about home ownership
“Under the Tories, home ownership is getting further out of reach for more and more people. Numbers of new affordable homes to buy have fallen, and fewer younger people can afford their own home. We will build more low-cost homes reserved for first-time buyers in every area, including Labour’s new discount homes with prices linked to local incomes. We will reform Help to Buy to focus it on first-time buyers on ordinary incomes. We will introduce a levy on overseas companies buying housing, while giving local people ‘first dibs’ on new homes built in their area.”
We are unaware of anybody holding the position that Lisa is arguing with. Far from opposing home ownership Labour under Corbyn can be criticised for committing to continuing with some form of Help to Buy which had driven up prices and acted as a subsidy to the big house builders. But at least the Manifesto placed first the commitment to build 150,000 social rent homes of which, 100,000 would be council homes and, crucially, it committed to ending RTB.
In her speech to the Housing Conference in Manchester recently, Lisa dredged up a Labour policy never implemented, from the 1959 Manifesto. There is in fact one sentence which refers to home ownership: “Every tenant, however, will have a chance first to buy from the Council the house he lives in…” In the same brief text on housing was excluded the re-introduction of rent controls (something Lisa Nandy is opposed to today) and the municipalisation of rent-controlled houses.
There is, of course, the little matter that four subsequent Labour governments, up to 1979 did not implement a policy of selling off council homes.
Although Lisa Nandy has talked about “like for like replacement” of homes sold she has provided no detail as to how this would happen. She has not even said that Labour will end the current restrictions on use of RTB receipts, such as the limit of 40% of the costs of a new build. Nor have they said that councils will be able to keep all their RTB receipts.
“If you want people to have real resilience in their lives, [they need access to the assets] that sustain them…” she has said. Yet a mortgage does not necessarily provide stability as many people are finding when they need to renegotiate their mortgage with interest rates rising sharply; increases which Labour is supporting because it treats the “independence” of the Bank of England as sacrosanct.
The Labour leadership is completely out of touch with the views of the membership, shown in the overwhelming votes at the 2019 and 2021 conferences, under Corbyn as Leader and then Starmer. The last year 10,954 council homes were sold. Add demolitions and councils have to build more than 13,000 replacements just to stem the loss.
You can support our statement calling on Labour to commit to ending RTB here.
Martin Wicks
Labour Campaign for Council Housing 