Everybody is entitled to a decent home at a price they can afford. This cannot be achieved in a free-for-all market, which has resulted in homelessness, over-crowding and squalor for thousands of our people. We have in a few months:
given an extra £350m for councils to build more new houses and buy existing housing; given a £500m loan to Building Societies to keep mortgage rates down, and to make more mortgages available; introduced a rent freeze for both council and private tenants; passed a Rent Act to give security of tenure to furnished tenants of absentee landlords; legislated for the creation of Housing Action Areas and against the abuse of improvement grants; introduced a Bill to demolish the Tory Housing Finance Act. The Labour Government will take into public ownership land required for development, redevelopment and improvement. These proposals do not apply to owner-occupiers, whose homes and gardens will be safeguarded. But the public ownership by local authorities of necessary land is essential to sensible and comprehensive planning both in our towns and in the countryside. The land will be paid for at existing use value and the expensive disgrace of land speculation will be ended.
The next Labour Government will:
help home-buyers through a new National Housing Finance Agency to assist first-time buyers and to stabilise mortgage lending. Local councils lending will be expanded so that they can play a major part in helping house purchasers and keep down costs by supplying unified services for estate agency, surveying, conveyancing and mortgages; restore to local authorities the right to fix rents which do not make profits out of their tenants; protect council tenants by giving them security of tenure; ensure that rent increases in the private sector will be limited by Government action and that houses without basic amenities will not be taken out of control; encourage the public ownership of rented property, except where an owner-occupier shares his home with a tenant; help conserve homes and areas that can be improved with the aid of grants rather than demolish them; reverse the disastrous fall in house-building, which will include measures to tackle the lump and other proposals which must be worked out by both sides of the construction industry to attack the system of casual labour in the industry and create a stable, permanent work force; abolish the agricultural tied cottage system; transfer housing management and allocation to elected authorities in the New Towns nearing completion.
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