We are only nine steps away from ending the housing crisis in the UK for all time.
1. Local council strategies for new and existing homes
Councils must make sure that the homes in their area reflect the needs of their residents.
All Councils should consult local people and communities when reviewing their strategy for current and new social rented homes, covering both homes owned and/or managed by the Council, and other social housing providers. Councils should target their consultation to include homeless families in temporary accommodation, single homeless people and others in high housing need.
The strategy should state current local need for social rented homes plus estimated future need and set out plans and timescales for meeting these needs in full. The strategy should ensure that all homes are decent, safe and affordable.
An appendix to the Strategy should set out the steps taken to consult, summarise the views expressed and highlight examples of how the strategy reflects these views.
Progress to date:
The London Mayor has £11.7billion to deliver the London Social and Affordable Homes Programme from 2026 – 2036.
2. Major planning reform for land development
We need to build lots of new homes as quickly as possible. The planning system should be simpler, with decisions based on the Council’s Housing Strategy to ensure that the homes built reflect the current and future needs of residents. This means that local Councils could tell developers what type of housing should be built and how many should be social rented homes.
To achieve this we need a diverse range of developers, including those able to develop smaller sites as well as those willing to upgrade or convert empty properties. Developers who gain planning permission but do not start to build within a year, (often to maintain scarcity to keep house prices high) should lose their planning consent.
Currently ten huge development Companies build 40% of all new homes. They are so rich that they can put pressure on Councils to grant planning consent on their own terms, because if they don’t get what they want they can threaten to appeal, spending hundreds of thousands on legal fees. Local Councils often cannot take the risk of such appeals because it could cost them thousands of pounds of Council Taxpayers’ money.
These Developers make huge profits. For example, one big developer invested £45m in new housing, and made a profit of £158m. Very little of such massive profits is spent on building more homes. Most profits go to shareholders and multi-million-pound bonuses to the Directors. Profits have increased hugely since Covid, and housing is now seen as a tradable asset within financial markets, instead of homes for people to live in. The planning system should be empowered to encourage small and medium-sized developers and encourage would-be owners to commission builders directly to build a home for them. There should also be more Community-led Housing, such as Co-operatives, where those in need of a home to rent can work with others to build homes that they can afford to rent and manage.
Progress to date:
The Government is simplifying the planning process to speed up decisions and Home England, the body that oversees affordable housing, is committed to encourage small and medium-sized developers. A new National Housing Bank will help smaller developers to access finance.
3. Increase in Council Homes
Local Councils should be encouraged, and given adequate resources, to build more homes. Where possible, this should include builders employed directly by the Council.
Unlike most public buildings, such as schools and hospitals, the money invested in new homes is eventually returned to the public purse in the form of rents, so it is a sensible investment.
Progress to date:
Every local Council now has a mandatory target for the number of homes they must build.
4. Reform of the Right to Buy
The Right to Buy is the single biggest reason for the acute scarcity of social rented homes and the reason that homeless families wait for years in temporary accommodation while others in housing need stand no chance at all of ever being offered a social rented home.
Since the 1980s Council tenants have had the right to buy their rented Council home at huge discounts of up to 70% and within the first five years, over a million Council homes had been sold. Homes have continued to be sold ever since, with the newest homes in the nicest areas being most at risk of being lost from Councils’ supply of rented homes.
Around 40% of these homes have since been sold to private landlords who now let them to private renters at rents often more than double Council rents.
The Right to Buy should be reformed to allow Councils in areas of high housing need to reduce the discount offered – if necessary to nil, and where the housing crisis is particularly acute, to suspend the Right to Buy for up to five years. This is essential for Councils to increase social rented homes to meet current need.
Where Council tenants may be able to afford to buy a home, Councils should offer them a sum on money as an incentive for them to buy a home elsewhere so that the home they vacate can be offered to another family in need of a social rented home.
Read our full blog on this here!
Progress to date:
The Government is consulting on a range of measures to restrict the Right to Buy, including,:
- Increasing the time Council tenants have lived in their home from 3 to 10 years before they can buy
- Reducing the discounts from up to 70% to between 5% and 15%
- Newly build social rented homes will be protected from Right to Buy for 35 years.
5. The tax system must be reformed
Implementing the steps we are calling for will cost a lot of money so the Government will need to raise more.
But income tax is already very high, so people can’t afford to pay more. There are lots of ways to reform the tax system without increasing the basic rate of income tax.
In the UK currently income from work is taxed at a higher rate than unearned income from wealth.
In 2023 the then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak earned £2.2 million and paid 23% in tax – the same tax rate as an average teacher.
Many millionaires agree that they should pay more tax. Campaign group Patriotic Millionaires UK are campaigning for six wealth tax policies that would raise £50 billion per year. These are:
1. Apply a 1-2% wealth tax on assets over £10 million, raising up to £22 billion a year.
2. Equalise capital gains with income tax rates, raising up to £15.2 billion a year.
3. Apply national insurance to investment income, raising up to £8.6 billion a year.
4. End the inheritance tax loopholes that benefit the already wealthy, raising up to £1.4 billion a year.
5. Reform the rules on non-dom status, raising up to £3.2 billion a year.
6. Introduce a 4% tax on share buybacks, raising approximately £2 billion a year.
Our partners at Tax Justice UK have lots more ideas from increasing tax revenue without making us all pay more.
Read our full blog on this here!
If you are campaigning on related issues such as fairer taxes or planning reform, please get in touch and help us to help you.
Progress to date:
Tax on unearned wealth is still taxed at a lower rate than income from work.
6. A new Fitness Standard for all rented homes
We support a National Landlords Register. Current proposals are for registration to be a legal requirement for all private landlords. In order to register they would have to provide independent evidence that the homes they propose to let are safe and decent and that they are competently managed. We believe that this requirement should be extended to all landlords, private, Councils, Housing Associations and any other bodies who own and let homes.
Progress to date:
The Government is going to produce a new Decent Homes Standard that should apply to all private and social rented homes but they are not planning to introduce this until 2035.
7. A national body to oversee rents in all rented sectors
We are calling for a Commission to devise a rent policy which would include the collection of rent data and compare increases with other factors, including incomes and general inflation. The aim would be to provide guidance for landlords of all types, and information for renters to enable them to consider whether to apply to the Property Tribunal for a determination of their rent.
Progress to date:
There are no current plans to set up a Commission to look at rents, but private landlords will be restricted from 1 May 2026 in how rents can be increased .
8. The Benefits System must be reformed
Housing Benefit, and the housing element of Universal Credit, is capped at the Local Housing Allowances (LHA ) level of the lowest third of rents in each designated area, known as the Broad Rental Market Area. After a four-year freeze in the LHA amounts, they returned to the lowest third of rents in 2024, but this was based on rents for the 12 months to September 2023 and rents have increased a lot since then. The LHA is based on all rents, not just rents for new lets.
There is still often a big gap in the housing benefit received and the actual rent, even for people who are entitled to the maximum housing benefit. This is partly because once property becomes let, some landlords don’t increase the rent every year, but when properties are re-let, most landlords will try to get the maximum rent from new tenants.
There is also a big gap because in many areas, there are more people needing to rely on housing benefit than there are properties at the lowest third of rents, and of course, these are not all available to those on benefits. So many renters are forced to accept tenancies at rents which are higher that the Local Housing Allowance.
There is also no consideration of the condition of lettings, so landlords have no incentive to do repairs in order to get a higher rent from people on benefits.
A review of housing benefit should be undertaken so that it reflects what tenants have to pay. This review should be undertaken as part of a wider reform of Universal Credit, to include payments in advance, and a more sensitive approach to sanctions which often reduce benefits for reasons outside claimants’ control.
Progress to date:
Housing Benefit and the housing element of Universal Credit is not currently covering the 30 th percentile of private rents but it due to be reviewed in April 2026.
9. A free National Housing Advice Centre
All renters should be able to get free legal advice online or at a local accessible Centre.
The system of Legal Aid should be reformed to increase the level of income for eligibility for legal advice and representation. The type of housing advice should be unrestricted to allow for early intervention. The Legal Aid fees that advice centres can claim must be increased to cover their costs so that more legal firms and voluntary sector agencies can afford to offer advice and representation on housing and other legal matters. This will result in savings in other social areas such as homelessness and the health service.
Read our full blog on this here!
Progress to date:
The Government have confirmed that they will be uplifting fees for housing and immigration legal aid – worth £20m when implemented, but no implementation date has been set yet.