Labour pledges to become ‘party of home ownership’

Keir Starmer will bring in a new mortgage guarantee scheme in order to help deliver a huge increase in home ownership under a future Labour government, he told the Party’s annual conference yesterday.

The Labour leader said the party will target a home ownership rate of 70%, which compares to less than 65% at the moment, in a bid to make Labour the “party of home ownership in Britain today”.

The new policy was a central part of Starmer’s centrepiece conference address yesterday, which also included a pledge to reform the planning system “so speculators can’t stop communities getting shovels in the ground”.

He said that if elected Labour will “Help real first-time buyers onto the ladder with a new mortgage guarantee scheme”.

A mortgage guarantee scheme is designed to allow buyers to access cheaper loans than otherwise available through the state standing behind home lending. However, some previous schemes have been criticised as inflationary.

Rates of home ownership in England peaked under the previous Labour government in 2003 at 71% before plateauing and then falling back sharply in the wake of the financial crisis, to hit a low of 62.6% in 2016/17. Since then, home ownership has recovered slowly and currently stands at 64.9%.

Moving from there to 70% would entail around 1.2 million households moving into home ownership.

Starmer said home ownership was “the bedrock of security and aspiration”. “But now, under the Tories, the dream of owning your own home is slipping away for too many,” he said. “And that’s a political choice. Because if you keep inflating demand without increasing supply house prices will only rise. And homes become less affordable for working people.

“So we will set a new target – 70% home ownership and we will meet it with a new set of political choices.”

He said under Labour there would be “no more buy-to-let landlords or second homeowners getting in first”. He said: “We will back working people’s aspiration. Help real first-time buyers onto the ladder with a new mortgage guarantee scheme. Reform planning so speculators can’t stop communities getting shovels in the ground.

“My message is this: If you’re grafting every hour to buy your own home Labour is on your side. Labour is the party of home ownership in Britain today.”

Starmer’s message came after shadow housing secretary Lisa Nandy on Monday pledged to make “council housing, council housing, council housing” the mantra of a Labour government, and restore social housing to the second largest form of tenure. She also promised to rebalance the housing market toward first time buyers.

Iain Mulheirn, executive director of policy at the Tony Blair Institute, said it was “great” to see Keir Starmer setting a target for 70% home ownership. He said on Twitter the move was an “Important symbol of Labour’s commitment to aspiration”.

Robert Colvile, director at the centre-right think tank the Centre of Policy Studies, and co-author of the 2019 Conservative manifesto, said it was “unambiguously a good thing for Labour to have committed to housebuilding and home ownership.” He said: “The devil is in the detail obvs but we need a really firm cross-party consensus on this.”