London’s Tory Housing Crisis

Stop any Londoner in the street and they will tell you that our city is in the middle of a full blown housing crisis. It is the single biggest challenge to face politicians of my generation in the capital. Home ownership is falling. The average age of a first time buyer is rising. Rents are increasing by ten percent a year, yet the standard of homes in the private rented sector is falling. Homelessness is rocketing. Letting agency fees continue to rise. The housing benefit bill has gone through the roof and this has all been made much worse by the Government’s vindictive bedroom tax.

Successive Government’s have failed to build the amount of new homes London needs, but the situation has got much worse under the Tory Mayor and Coalition Government. Under David Cameron, house building has fallen to the lowest level since the 1920’s. Boris Johnson has missed every one of his own targets for building new affordable homes and his laissez faire approach to the London housing market has been a spectacular failure. And new figures revealed today show that Tory Councils in London have built on average half as many affordable homes as Labour Councils in the capital. It is abundantly clear that the Conservatives simply don’t want to fix this problem.

Ed Miliband and Emma Reynolds have outlined our bold plans to tackle the crisis nationally. We will build 200,000 homes a year by the end of the next Parliament. Development corporations will be given the additional powers and freedoms they need to kick-start the next generation of New Towns and Garden Cities to ease the pressure on the capital. Developers will have no choice but to offer properties for sale in London before they advertise them abroad, and the rules on additional Council Tax for second homes will be tightened. New minimum standards for the private rented sector will be introduced and landlords encouraged to make renting more secure and affordable.

But Londoners do not have to wait until the general election in 2015 to take action to begin getting this crisis under control. Town halls and local Councils have the power to begin tackling this crisis now. Indeed many already are. On average, Labour councils in London have built twice as many affordable homes as Tory councils since the last London elections in 2010, and five times as many as Liberal Democrat councils. They have decided to prioritise their increasingly scant resources to build homes that local people can genuinely afford to rent and to buy.

Labour Councils across London have taken tough decisions to get this crisis under control. They have implemented measures to improve the quality of homes in the private rented sector – as seen in Newham, who have lead the way on licensing landlords, improving standards and reducing anti-social behaviour. Labour councils are tackling the extortionate fees charged to tenants by letting agencies – as seen in Hackney, who have launched their own lettings agency to reduce the cost to tenants.

But there is much more to do. Which is why today every Labour council and group in London have pledged to do everything in their powers to tackle the London Housing Crisis in their area. Labour councils in London will:

1. Build more genuinely affordable homes
2. Tackle rogue landlords and rip-off letting agencies
3. Build more homes for London’s growing population
4. Bring empty homes back into use
5. Create jobs and apprenticeships in the building industry

If you’re a Londoner looking for an affordable home to buy, you’ll find it under Labour. And if you’re a Londoner renting, under Labour you’ll see more affordable rents, pay less in lettings agency fees if you want to move home, and find higher standards when you get there.  And under Labour, Londoners will see more jobs and apprenticeships for local people.

London Labour will be campaigning about the #ToryHousingCrisis and talking to Londoners about our Council pledges throughout February. Can you join us? You can help by going to www.LondonHousingCrisis.com and signing our petition.

Our message to Londoners is clear. If you hope to one day own your own home in London, if your rent is rocketing every year,if you are still living at home with your parents or if you have been forced to move away from your family and friends, go out on May 22^nd and vote for a Labour Council to begin getting to grips with the Tory Housing Crisis.

Rt Hon Sadiq Khan is Shadow London Minister and Member of Parliament for Tooting