An Explainer of Labour’s Housing Policy on Council Housing

by | Nov 22, 2019 | Blog: All Things Mile End, All Things Tower Hamlets, Community, Democracy, Housing

Council home lists in Tower Hamlets are now 116 years long (Number of years it will take to house everyone on the 2018 list, at the 2017-18 rate)

There are 18,808 people waiting for a council home in Tower Hamlets

New figures show that at the current rate of building of council and social homes 162 homes built last year), it would take 116 years to house all 18,808 people on council housing waiting lists in a social rented home. 

The number of socially rented homes being built in Tower Hamlets has fallen from 830 2010/11, when the last Labour government’s funding for councils was still being delivered, to 162 in 2017/18, the last financial year for which there are figures.

Since 2010, local authorities have been prevented from building adequate social housing by the Tories and Lib Dems, with council budgets cut by £16bn since they came to power.

The next Labour government will end the housing crisis by building the affordable homes our country needs:

  1. Build over a million genuinely affordable council and social homes over 10 years, scrapping the Tories’ definition of ‘affordable’ housing and replacing it with a new definition linked to local incomes
  2. End the right to buy and give councils the new funding and powers they need to kick-start the biggest council house building programme in a generation
  3. Scrap ‘no-fault’ evictions, control rents for private renters and give councils new powers to enforce standards in the private rented sector
  4. Bring in a new Decent Homes 2 standard for all council and housing association homes to make them warm, safe and dry, and fund the retrofitting of sprinklers in all high-rise social housing tower blocks
  5. Scrap the punishing bedroom tax and introduce a new ‘zero carbon’ homes standard for new homes to reduce emissions and lower household bills

Basic Facts

  1. There are 1,114,477 households on local authorities’ housing waiting lists. 

MHCLG, 24 January 2019, live table 600: number of households on local authorities’ housing waiting lists, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/773004/LT_600.xlsx

2. Since the 2015 General Election an average of 6,374 homes for social rent have been built

YearNumber of social rented homes built
2015-166,794
2016-175,895
2017-186,434
3 year average6,374

MHCLG, 18 June 2019, live table 1000: additional affordable homes provided, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/809386/Live_Table_1000.xlsx

3. Under the Tory’s the number of homes for social rent has dropped by 83% from 39,559 (a number which was inherited from the last Labour Government in house building)

2010-1139,559
2011-1237,677
2012-1317,618
2013-1410,924
2014-159,570
2015-166,794
2016-175,895
2017-186,434

MHCLG, 18 June 2019, live table 1000: additional affordable homes provided, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/809386/Live_Table_1000.xlsx

4. 1,114,477 (the number of households on waiting lists) divided by 6374 (the combined total yearly average of the number of council and social rented homes built) = 175 years