The party will publish its manifesto today and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has confirmed that housing will provide the backbone to its strategy.
Labour has already promised to build over a million publicly funded new homes in five years, with at least half a million being council homes.
The policy aims to close the gap between the UK’s housing needs and what the house building market is currently delivering.
The UK needs approximately 250,000 new homes to be built each year, however despite continued improvements over the last few years, the industry is only expected to build 168,000 this year, according to the latest National House Building Council (NHBC) data.
In 2016 house building dipped by 2% as just 151,687 new homes were registered by the NHBC.
Renters’ rights
Labour has also pledged to introduce a range of measures for private renters including rent controls, secure tenancies, a charter of private tenants’ rights, and increasing access to affordable home ownership.
Corbyn told the Guardian: “There are obviously many priorities but the crisis of housing and setting in train a housing programme that would build more council housing at socially affordable rents and ensuring there is proper regulation of the private rental sector is a very high priority for me.”
The Conservative government has set out its plans for the housing sector in the Housing White Paper published earlier this year.
