Labour to focus on smaller firms and sites in new housing plan
LABOUR’S shadow housing minister Emma Reynolds will announce a new housing policy today and admit that the UK has underbuilt for the last 30 years, including under previous Labour governments.
Reynolds will address the National House Building Council, where she will unveil Labour’s Build First policy, a scheme to encourage more competition in the construction sector by boosting the number of homes built by small and medium-sized companies. “The next Labour government will require local authorities to include a higher proportion of small sites in their five year land supply,” she will say, adding: “We will give guaranteed access to public land to smaller firms and custom builders.”
The shadow minister will also confirm Labour’s commitment to new towns and garden cities but will admit that house-building has been too low for 30 years.
Conservative housing minister Kris Hopkins criticised the scheme, calling it: “The same old recipe of top-down targets which build nothing but resentment, more taxes and more debt.”He said building is now at its highest since 2007.