Prime minister also reiterates commitments to give councils greater powers to intervene in housing market
Andy Burnham has promised to introduce a leasehold reform bill before Christmas, in his debut conference speech as Labour leader.
Speaking to the party faithful on Tuesday afternoon, the new prime minister told leaseholders that “the days of you being squeezed for every penny are coming to an end”.
“We will introduce a bill before Christmas for long overdue leasehold reform,” he said.
The draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill, which would largely replace leasehold as a tenure, was published earlier this year but has yet to be formally introduced to parliament.
Burnham’s comments came after the housing secretary, Angela Rayner, earlier in the day promised to take action to stop leaseholders being “ripped off”, as well as promising new regulation of estate agents, letting agents and managing agents.
The prime minister’s speech set out a range of other measures relating to the housing sector, most of which were pitched at increasing the level of public control over the housing market.
He emphasized the importance of “not seeing housing only as a market with winners and losers, but as an essential everyone needs for a good life”, re-iterating his promise to end rough sleeping and create “the biggest council housebuilding program since the post-war era”.
He said: “I am specific about council homes because we need to restore stronger democratic control over our housing stock. We will help councils build again and make it affordable by building on unused public land”.
Burnham also promised to end right to buy for new builds, and to give councils powers to take ownership of empty homes and to force private landlords to improve the worst quality rental homes.
“If they refuse, we will make it much easier for councils to acquire those homes and we will legislate if necessary,” he said.
He also mentioned Your First Home, a first-time buyer scheme announced ahead of conference, which he said would “open up home ownership to those not backed by the bank of Mum and Dad”.
No comments yet