Labour mortgage summit amid brewing repayments crisis
Labour are set to hold crunch talks with mortgage brokers this week amid a brewing repayments crisis.
Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has pledged homeownership will be the core of her ‘securenomics’ philosophy as she claimed Labour is now the party of house buyers.
Reeves and shadow levelling up secretary Lisa Nandy will attend the summit with brokers on Wednesday to hear the impact of interest rate rises on first-time buyers and homeowners.
She is expected to vow that Sir Keir Starmer’s party’s plans to put rocket boosters under housebuilding will bring security to families and the national economy.
And she will add that Labour “is now the only choice for people who dream of owning their own home”, with a four-point plan to help people get and stay on the housing ladder.
The party want to see 70 per cent of people own their homes and say they will achieve this via: reforming the planning system and restoring local housing targets; including rental payments in mortgage affordability tests and backing shared, discounted and community ownership models; introducing a state-backed mortgage insurance and guarantor scheme; and giving local residents first refusal on new developments in their areas.
“Too often, families who are saving for their first home but getting no closer to buying it tell me that they feel like they’re doing something wrong,” Reeves said.
‘Broken housing market’
She said the common denominator of a “broken housing market, insecure economy, soaring prices and broken public services” was the last 13 years of Conservative government.
“Nowhere is that more true than on homeownership, with more and more people locked out of the market, or forced to pay hundreds of pounds a month more,” she added.
The summit comes as Labour claims new analysis on housebuilding shows a failure to build enough homes will hit the UK economy by £44bn, with the state losing out on £16bn in tax.
While the last census found 700,000 more adults were living with parents in 2021 than in 2011, a 15 per cent rise, while there was a 44 per cent rise in 20 to 24 year olds doing so.
A Conservative spokesperson said: “Labour’s talk on housing is meaningless when they’re also committed to an unfunded £28bn borrowing spree which Rachel Reeves admitted could crash the markets.
“Labour’s wild spending would fuel inflation and send interest rates through the roof, meaning more borrowing and higher taxes for hard-working people managing housing costs.
“The Conservatives are supporting vulnerable mortgage holders and building hundreds of thousands of new homes while protecting our green space – and we remain focused on delivering on our priorities to halve inflation and grow the economy.”