Jeremy Corbyn today pledged to build one million “genuinely affordable” homes over 10 years to tackle the housing crisis if Labour comes to power.
The majority of new homes proposed by the Labour leader would be for social rent, delivered by local councils and overseen by a new government department dedicated solely to housing.
At the launch of a consultation for their Housing for the Many green paper in London today, he was due to say he would usher in “a new era of social housing” if Labour wins the next election.
It comes as Sadiq Khan today published City Hall figures showing that he had met his target of 12,000 new affordable home starts a year, with 12,526 being started in 2017-18.
The Labour plan promised 100,000 “genuinely affordable homes” would be built each year - six times the current output and a level not recorded since 1978.
It also outlined plans to redefine “affordable” rents, with “social rented homes” at half the rent level of the market equivalent, lift council housing borrowing caps to kick-start construction, and to guarantee that people whose council-owned flats are redeveloped will be offered a new home on the same site to prevent “social cleansing”.
“As a country, we have lost the principle that a decent home is not a privilege for the few but a right owed to all, regardless of income.
"Let today mark a turning point, from which we start to get it back,” Mr Corbyn was set to say.
He set out his proposals for housing today with Mr Khan and shadow housing secretary John Healey MP, at Westminster’s Churchill Gardens estate.
