Labour leader Sir Kier Starmer has told his party conference that buy to let landlords will no longer “get in first” ahead of local people buying homes.
In a wide-ranging speech to delegates in Liverpool, Starmer gave few details of what that proposal actually meant, but he said: “Buy to let landlords and second home owners will not get in first in front of local communities.”
The leader said Labour was now "the party of home ownership" and that he was setting a target of 70 per cent of homes being owner-occupied by the end of a Labour government's five year term.
Under the current Tory government, by contrast, he said: "The dream of owning your own home is slipping away".
He continued: "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."
Therefore he told delegates that Labour would set up a mortgage guarantee scheme skewed to help first time buyers get on the ladder, as well as increasing the supply of affordable homes for rent and to buy.
Earlier in the conference, shadow housing secretary Lisa Nandy said she was committed to making social housing move up to become the second largest housing tenure in the UK; currently it is third, behind the private rented sector, which itself trails owner occupation. Matched with Starmer's pledge, this suggests that Labour wants a reduction in the buy to let private rental sector.
Much of Starmer's 55 minute speech today was given over to the economy, with the key proposal being the creation of a state-owned company - GB Energy - to provide additional energy capacity alongside the private sector, and to set up the UK as "a clean energy superpower and guarantee long term energy security."
He said Labour "will make sure that the public money we spend building-up British industry, spurs on private investment, stimulates growth… and the British people enjoy the returns" adding that: "Labour won't make the mistake the Tories made with North Sea oil and gas back in the 1980s, where they frittered away the wealth from our national resources."
The remaining key points from the Labour leader included a repeated phrase that there must be a "fairer" and "greener" and "more dynamic" economy, with an emphasis on defeating the cost of living crisis and working as a partnership with business to create jobs and long term sustainable economic growth. The NHS would receive 7,500 extra medical students each year under Labour, and enjoy 10,000 extra nursing placements.
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He is in fantasy land
Agree. Plenty of times I’ve been outbid or outpriced, I don’t tend to go over a certain amount where-as buyers will go to whatever they need to get it.
I would love to know how he would make this work, the seller will always sell to the high bidder with the finances in place to buy
Fellow Landlords and PRS experts, please let me know where I have things wrong as I am very confused. Every time someone in Government who think they know about the PRS or Labour who would like us to think they know something, make another attack on the PRS Landlords plan an exodus. For every 100 lost properties will ultimately, working down the food chain, mean circa 75 less homes and homeless families, who will go to their local council demanding they house them. The Councils will then house them in Bed & breakfasts, hotels etc, along with the Afghanistan’s and Ukrainians plus illegal immigrants.
In 2015 George Osbourne, whose qualification for Chancellor was a Geography Degree, introduce Section 24 and other measures, stating that PRS were investors, not businesses!
Has any government department calculated how much Section 24 has netted the government against how much Councils pay out every year for renting B&B’s Hotels and the mental damage it does to the occupants?
If those who think in government or who want to be elected were to wake-up and forget about cheap votes, embraced the PRS recognised them as businesses we could work with them to address their total incompetence in the UK’s housing market!
I think we are all incredulous that politicians know so little about the PRS. It has only grown as a result of Govt polices over the years, and now likely to die over the next few years. Leaving people living where exactly? They say they are getting rid of 45% tax band to simplify tax and make it fairer, well what's more unfair and complicated than George Osborne's S24 taxation of landlords? Have tried explaining it to fairly intelligent people and they can't even understand what it is.
We can pull together, or we can pull apart, the ball is in the government's court.
I put in an FoI to HMRC about 6 months ago asking how much Sec.24 had netted the Treasury in each year since it was introduced.
They couldn't give me answer, saying this information was not available. This must be the first tax ever introduced that HMRC cannot determine how much is brings let own the effectiveness of it.
David this is one of the best post's I have seen on this forum. Well said.
What a load of cobblers! Buyers will pay what they're prepared to pay regardless of whether they're first time buyers, second time buyers or landlords. It's hard to believe all this rubbish actually makes a headline
Has he actually considered landlords contribute 4% stamp duty (Scotland) on a purchase which is supposed to be used towards social housing rebuilds. Where will that extra tax come from? Oh yes … US!
Local vendors have always had the choice of selling to another local buyer but for some reason ( greed?) they have embraced the rules of the market and sold to the highest bidder.
Wonder how Keir will ban that and keep any home owners' votes if he does so?
Probably not possible in practice, how can you dictate which buyers a seller should accept? Surely that would be an illegal restriction on personal choice. Also what about repossessions, are they going to tell lenders who they can sell to? I think not. There are already people who say they want to sell to FTB and not to "greedy landlords" that's their choice. I have sold 8 properties to date, 4 went to other landlords and 4 didn't. Just down to the type of property really, and whether it was more suited to being rented or not.
He will need to have thousands of houses built because landlords are leaving in there droves due to the constant changes in tax laws and they won’t be returning.
Then the council and government will need to have contracts with thousands of B & Bs as that’s where they will be putting the homeless if they don’t want families on the streets.
They don’t realise the massive problem that they are building up for the future but of course they know best.
So it not going to be a free Market, not that it is now with landlords having to pay double Stamp Duty. There are 2 different types of buyers home buyers want the property to be in good state of repair, ready to move into and anyway probably won’t get a Mortgage if gets a poor Surveyor's report.
Landlords are prepared to buy in poor or dilapidated condition with the aim to modernise even gut out or re model all cost a lot of dosk, the first time buyer is not up to that or capable for that matter, so I don’t see them as being much in competition with each other at all.
Still totally unelectable. Scary thought is we all vote Lib Dem as a protest vote and end up with a Liblab coalition! Will be time to pack up and move far away xxx
What about when people change their minds about what they're going to do with the house?
Last time we moved house we'd exchanged contracts on one we thought we were going to live in and then a more suitable one became available. We ended up buying both because we'd already paid the 10% exchange fee but that wasn't our intention at the time.
Jo, my friend not many will be that well hipped, lucky to get a sniff of one.
Er, Sir Kier, don't you realise that landlords are quietly getting on with selling off properties to reduce their exposure to the lunatics in charge, and those waiting in the wings (you). That's why we have a crisis in the PRS. At the moment I doubt there's too many landlords increasing their portfolios so you're just making a load of electoral hot air.
Idiots that have zero experience of housing anyone. I despair!
Couldn’t agree more everything that wrong with Private Sector Housing was forced to happy.
Is that not the same as stock market fixing?
Labour may be in fantasy land, but the public (aka … voters) will like what they are saying 😬 I noticed they did not mention scrapping the RTB ? One quick way to keep more social housing 🤔🤔
What a berk he is. BTL landlords already don’t get in in front of local people buying homes. We are consistently outbid and out-taxed by FTBs who have always (apart from 2 years after the credit crunch) been far bigger buyers than investors are, and are currently running at close to their highest rate ever. Someone needs to tell Starmer to check his facts.
This is restricting the competition or free market, the seller is not going to be happy and may not sell. So one of 2 things could happen, not selling will create more scarcity for first time buy keeping prices up, or selling for a reduced price will collapse the market. I think everyone knows about buying on a downward spiral, it goes down more after you bought.
I'm wondering if there's an avenue for suing these politicians for hate speech. Their rhetoric is often false and very dangerous. Landlord organisations should sue these politicians. It can very easily be proved that tenant satisfaction scores are quite high and the government are using private investors as pawns in their pathetic political bickerings. These politicians are largely unskilled, useless and incompetent. If you don't think so, look at the government deficit and debt and tell me you'd run your business in such a hopeless manner? Same with the lefty losers like James O Brien, a man that also attacks landlords. This shameless man dines and wines in top end Soho champagne bars and sends his child to private school all whilst living in 7 figure value victorian property in London. No, he's no where near our towns and cities which have been utterly wrecked by his labour councils with their stupidity and incompetence. However, he wants more of his failed ideology for us, just not for him thank you.
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