Affordable housing: the political parties' policies >>>>>> the Liberal Democrats

Last month, this blog started looking at the policies of each national party when it comes to 'affordable housing':
Futures Forum: Affordable housing: the political parties' policies >>>>>> the Conservatives
Futures Forum: Affordable housing: the political parties' policies >>>>>> the Greens

Now it's the turn of the Liberal Democrats:

F21: Building the Affordable Homes we Need (2010/14)

This motion develops policies to build on our existing commitment to a target of building 300,000 new homes a year by 2020. In particular it creates a new policy on the creation of a Housing Investment Bank and the development of a long-term plan to deliver our house building objective.

Existing policies on housing are set out in policy paper 104, Decent Homes For All (2012). Existing policies on land use planning are set out in policy motion Reform of Planning (March 2014). 

F21: Building the Affordable Homes we Need

Conference welcomes the measures in policy paper 104, Decent Homes For All (2012), and conference motion Reform of the Planning System (March 2014) to deliver up to 300,000 new homes a year, to give renters a new deal, increase the resilience of the house-building industry, give local authorities and social housing providers more powers to build, secure land for development at lower prices and remove underlying barriers to restoring house price stability.

Conference notes with concern:

i) The failure of the private sector, and of previous administrations, to deliver the homes that Britain needs.
ii) The far reaching consequences of a shortage of decent housing on economic growth, labour market mobility, education, social mobility, health and the shape of economic growth in the UK.
iii) The barriers to sustainable housing delivery including: an opaque land market, lack of both public and private finance, the capacity and competitiveness of the house building industry, integration of infrastructure provision, historical failures in design and planning, and inconsistent political will.

Conference celebrates the Liberal Democrat commitment to:

a) Freeing local authorities to build for the first time in a generation, bringing 102,000 empty homes back into use since 2010 and allowing councils to charge full Council Tax on second homes and empty homes.
b) Delivering long term strategic investment in infrastructure, to support economic growth outside of London.
c) Empowering local authorities to create new garden cities, towns, villages and neighbourhoods where there is local demand.

F21: Building the Affordable Homes we Need


Clegg wants three garden cities in wealthy South (2014)

New garden cities between Oxford and Cambridge will provide a solution to the “chronic” housing shortfall

Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, will today publish a long-awaited prospectus which he describes as a “call to arms” for a new generation of garden cities. He will say that the new garden cities, which will each have at least 15,000 new homes, will end the “resentment” caused by decades of “ad-hoc urban sprawl” and provide a solution to the “chronic” housing shortfall.

Clegg wants three garden cities in wealthy South - Telegraph
Nick Clegg promises ten garden cities to battle housing shortage - Blue and Green Tomorrow
Liberal Democrat Voice | garden cities


Labour has no right to lecture about housebuilding (2014)

Liberal Democrat Party President Tim Farron has slammed Labour’s plans for housebuilding, pointing to their terrible record when in government. By the time they left office the number of new homes being built had fallen to its lowest level since the 1920s and the number of families waiting for a social home nearly doubled from 1 million to 1.8 million.

Commenting, Tim Farron MP said: “Labour want us to pretend that the housing problems we face in Britain are nothing to do with them, but they totally failed to deal with the issue in office.
Under Labour, the number of affordable homes fell by 421,000. They have no right to lecture about how we solve a housing problem they did not nothing to address.
Labour didn’t have the solutions in government and they don’t have the solutions now. Building 200,000 houses a year is an unambitious target that does not even keep up with household demand.
The Liberal Democrats plan for 300,000 new homes a year would help clear the backlog and address Britain’s housing problems.”

Labour has no right to lecture about housebuilding


Ten Broken Lib Dem Promises (2013)

Harriet Harman Shadow Deputy Prime Minister, Labour MP

The Liberal Democrats will do a lot of talking at their conference in Glasgow this week, so it's worth remembering the single most important truth about them: Nick Clegg has repeatedly said one thing and then done another. Time after time Nick Clegg has tried to distance himself from the failures of David Cameron's government but the truth is he has ditched his principles and voted in Parliament with the Tories all the way.

6. Mansion Tax
In opposition, the Liberal Democrats said they backed a mansion tax. Even after they went into coalition with the Tories, Nick Clegg said "The Mansion Tax is right, it makes sense and the Liberal Democrats will continue to make the case for it. We're going to stick to our guns". Did he stick to his guns? Of course not. When given the chance to stand up for their own principles and vote for a mansion tax, Liberal Democrat MPs voted against it.

Ten Broken Lib Dem Promises | Harriet Harman

'Help to rent' scheme for young people proposed by Liberal Democrats (2015)

People aged 18 to 30 – the clipped wing generation, according to Nick Clegg – will benefit from scheme
The Liberal Democrats have announced plans to provide government loans for tenancy deposits to help young people to rent their first home.
The party’s proposed “help to rent” scheme would allow people aged 18 to 30 to borrow up to £1,500 (£2,000 in London) from the government to use as a deposit on rented accommodation. The loans would be repaid over a period of either 12 or 24 months.
The party says many young people are struggling to save deposits to rent without help from family members, forcing them to live with their parents for longer. The average rental deposit in the UK is £1,200, usually six weeks of rent.

'Help to rent' scheme for young people proposed by Liberal Democrats | Society | The Guardian
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