Labour launch major review to combat home ownership free fall

Labour has today launched a major review into the sharp decline in home ownership. The Redfern Review was commissioned by the Shadow Housing minister John Healey shortly after Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership victory in September, but will be run independently of the party.

The review is headed by Pete Redfern, Chief Executive of residential development company Taylor Wimpey, and will report its findings to Labour in late summer. Redfern today set out five major themes that his review will study: the constraints on first time buyers, the effectiveness of transitions in home tenure, homeownership later in life, housing supply, and short, medium and long term impact of current policies.

John Healey welcomed the review, which is the biggest of its kind in over a decade. He said that “increasing home ownership is Labour’s housing priority”, which itself is an issue Corbyn said he wanted to prioritise when he became leader.

“A million more households became home owners under Labour, but home-ownership is now in free fall,” Healey said.

“Young people aspiring to own a home have been the hardest hit. What used to be a natural part of growing up is becoming a luxury for those on the highest salaries, or whose parents have the deepest pockets. It would be Labour’s first priority in government to change that.

“The Redfern Review will take a hard look at the causes of the recent decline in home ownership, to help bring fresh ideas to the wider public debate on how we can get to grips with this problem.”

Redfern will be advised by a team of experts on housing and economics. They are:

• Dame Kate Barker, former Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee member, and author of the Barker Review of Housing Supply
• Terrie Alafat CBE,  Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing, and former Director of Housing at the Department for Communities and Local Government
• Ian Mulheirn, Director of Consulting at Oxford Economics and former Director of the Social Market Foundation
• Andy Gray, former Managing Director of Mortgages at Barclays and ex-deputy chair of the Council of Mortgage Lenders.