Thursday briefing: Labour wants a housing revolution – can it build one?
government would take to deliver economic growthPhotograph: Lucy North/AP
Good morning.
House prices in the UK have soared over the last 15 years. 1.3 million people are on local authority social housing waiting lists. In the last three months of 2023, there was a 16% increase in the number of people who were made homeless, and last year rough sleeping rose by 27%. Last summer, 109,000 households were living in temporary accommodation, up by 10% year on year. Projections show that if nothing changes, nearly five million households will live in unaffordable housing by 2030.
The scale of England’s housing crisis is staggering. Labour has promised to tackle it head on, with the new chancellor, Rachel Reeves, pledging to build 1.5m homes over the next five years. It is an ambitious target that would create levels of housebuilding not seen since the 1950s. Yet, despite this, yesterday Britain’s biggest housebuilder announced it expects to build fewer houses this year than last.
For today’s newsletter, I spoke with the Guardian’s social affairs correspondent, Robert Booth, about Labour’s new housing proposals and how likely it is that the party will be able to fulfil them. That’s right after the headlines.
Five big stories
Israel-Gaza war | The Israeli military told all Palestinian civilians to leave Gaza City and head south on Wednesday as it stepped up a military offensive in Gaza that has killed dozens of people over the past 48 hours.
UK news | A British former soldier wanted in connection with the death of three women in a suspected crossbow attack has been captured after being found with injuries, police have said.
Ukraine | The first F-16 fighter jets are on their way to Ukraine and will be flying missions this summer, according to a statement from the Dutch and Danish governments that was released by the White House at the Nato summit.
Prisons | The “shocking” prisons crisis is even worse than feared, Keir Starmer has said as the government prepares to release tens of thousands of inmates early in a bid to prevent jails becoming full. The prime minister suggested he was opposed to freeing violent criminals and sex offenders when ministers announce the terms of a new prisoner release scheme for England and Wales on Friday.
Japan | A woman who was swept out to sea while swimming at a beach has been rescued about 50 miles off the Japanese coast, 36 hours after she went missing, officials have said.
In depth: ‘It’s not just about political will – there are economic headwinds’
Labour has an “incredibly steep mountain to climb”, says Robert, but it’s a challenge Reeves is sure she can meet, announcing plans to turn the government’s 1.5m houses pledge into reality. This includes the return of compulsory housebuilding targets for local councils, a policy that was scrapped under the previous government. But the main way that Labour is saying it will hit its target is through planning reform. “In other words, they will be loosening restrictions on building on parts of the green belt and speeding up planning decisions,” Robert says.
Building on the green belt, which covers about 13% of England, has met fierce opposition in the past – with nimbyism blocking previous attempts to loosen the rules. To allay fears, Keir Starmer said Labour would prioritise building on brownfield sites and “poor quality” and “ugly” parts of the green belt, dubbed “grey belt”. There is no official designation or proper demarcation of what the grey belt is, but some research has indicated that it is about 1% of the total green belt area and is mostly located in the south-east. Labour has also said that 50% of the homes built on the grey belt have to be affordable. “Because of the scale of its election victory, Labour seems to be feeling very confident that it can push through much more housing in areas where it previously might have been controversial,” Robert says.
The government also has big ambitions to build new towns and urban extensions in England. The party said previously that an independent taskforce would be set up to identify appropriate sites for new towns, which would give it the opportunity to build tens of thousands of homes in one location. Previous government attempts to create new towns in the past two decades have stalled, and there has not been a successful new town initiative since a host of sites in the late 1960s and 70s, including Milton Keynes.
For more detail on this, Robert has written a helpful guide of the four primary options available to Labour to deliver on its housing pledges. A big part of how the new towns and expansions will be received by the public will depend on their design, Robert adds: “If somehow Labour can create a vibrant, hopeful, new model for what a settlement could be like, with schools, cinemas, shops, community centres, it could have a real impact on public acceptance.”
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Affordability
It has become an accepted truth in England that to solve the housing crisis, the government needs to build more homes. But the reality is that it’s not just the lack of homes that is fuelling the problem, it’s also affordability. In the UK, house prices remain unaffordable despite wages rising above inflation for the typical earner. And, according to the Resolution Foundation, housing stock in this country is the worst value for money when compared with other advanced economies.
Though the government has indicated a desire to create more affordable and social housing, the majority of the new houses will be going up for private sale.
Labour has said in the past that it will require higher levels of affordable housing to be delivered as part of planning deals with private developers, setting 40% targets, but the truth of the matter is that the private house builders still hold a lot of power, Robert says. “A lot of these sites are under their ownership, and if Labour tries to push them too hard it may reduce the amount of total housing delivered.”
The other way Labour could drive up the affordable and social housing stock is by investing in it directly. “The government has said that it is planning to somewhat increase the funding for affordable housing, but whether that will be enough to significantly change the balance between private housing and social housing remains to be seen,” Robert says.
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The obstacles
Labour’s sizeable majority has made it “bullish” about its ability to “drive through housing reform against nimby opposition”, Robert says, though in the past nimbyism has been a very politically powerful force that has derailed housing proposals.
Another potential obstacle is cost. The price of construction materials has been soaring in recent years and there is a significant skills shortage, which means that housebuilders are not in a position to increase output quickly. “The planning experts in the local authorities have been stripped back to the bone over the past 14 years,” Robert says. “So it’s not just about political will and public acceptance of this, there are some quite severe economic headwinds as well.”
These plans, if they work, will alleviate some of the pressure that has built up in the housing sector and even allow some people who are stuck in private rented accommodation to buy their own homes for the first time. “But the rump of the private renters are still going to remain subject to rapidly rising rents and housing insecurity,” Robert says. In order to fix this, campaigners have said the government should also focus on regulating the rental sector and creating more social housing on top of increasing housing stock. “Unaffordable housing and the lack of council homes are the areas which affect the people who are most acutely suffering from the housing crisis.”
What else we’ve been reading
Gaynor Madgwick recalls the trauma of losing her two siblings in the Aberfan disaster – which has cast a vast shadow over the rest of her life – in a sensitively written How we survive feature by Emine Saner. Hannah J Davies, deputy editor, newsletters
Joe Biden has been fighting for his political life since his disastrous presidential debate against Donald Trump. Robert Tait lays out how he has managed to save his nomination but cautions that he is not yet out of the woods. Nimo
A set of house keys at age six and cooking dinner for the family by eight: the latest Euro visions column on continental innovations is by Andy Welch, on why Norwegian children are so very independent. Hannah
ICYMI: Joel Snape has pulled together arguably the most helpful list of all time: how to be productive without feeling like you’re trying. Nimo
As well as being a compelling watch, Netflix’s smash hit Supacell also comes with an important health message, reports Lanre Bakare. Hannah
Sport
Euro 2024 | With Xavi Simons and Harry Kane exchanging early goals, the game looked set for extra time before Ollie Watkins made it 2-1 and sent England into the final.
Tennis | Elena Rybakina lived up to her billing as favourite to win Wimbledon with a ruthless 6-3, 6-2 dismantling of Elina Svitolina in the quarter-finals. Lorenzo Musetti beat Taylor Fritz 3-6, 7-6 (5), 6-2, 3-6, 6-1 to set up a semi-final clash with Novak Djokovic.
Cricket | England took control with a commanding bowling performance on the first day of the first Test against West Indies, ending it with a 68-run lead.
The front pages
We have a separate papers round-up focused on the football result – our usual summary of the top news stories follows. The Guardian says “Starmer: ‘shocking’ prisons crisis is worse than I feared” while the Daily Telegraph has “Crossbow killer executes BBC star’s family”. “BBC man family slain” – that’s the Daily Mirror and the Daily Express has portrait photos of the “Victims of horror crossbow killings”. “Crossbow horror” says the Daily Mail and the Times reports “Former soldier held over ‘triple crossbow murder’”. Top story in the i is “Water firms told to refund customer bills if they fail to tackle sewage” and in the Financial Times it’s “Biden’s re-election drive reels under fresh blows from Pelosi and Clooney”.
Today in Focus
The Conservative party: rows, resignations … and a tilt right?
After a brutal defeat, the starting gun has been fired on the Tory leadership battle – but which faction will triumph? Kiran Stacey and Peter Walker report
Cartoon of the day | Martin Rowson
A special offer from the Guardian Print Shop
To celebrate the first solo exhibition from multiaward-winning Guardian cartoonist Ben Jennings, Snowflake’s Progress, we’re delighted to offer 10% off for First Edition readers at the Guardian Print shop. Buy signed limited edition exhibition prints of Ben’s cartoons with the code GSUBSCRIBER10 until Saturday 20 July.
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
Last night saw the London Symphony Orchestra tackle some unusual material, in the form of the US hip-hop trio Cypress Hill’s Black Sunday album. The concert was inspired by a joke from a 1996 episode of the Simpsons, in which the group speculated that they had mistakenly booked the orchestra, “possibly while high”.
After years of fan pressure, Rachel Hall reports, a deal was struck for a one-off performance of songs including Insane in the Brain. Cypress Hill’s B-Real told the BBC: “It’s been something that we’ve talked about for many years since the Simpsons episode first aired. So it’s very special for us”.
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Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.
