House prices need to fall in relation to people’s incomes, Keir Starmer has said, in a sign the Labour leader is willing to take on the objections of existing homeowners to get more people onto the property ladder. Starmer told the British Chambers of Commerce annual conference on Wednesday that he believed prices should come down to make homes more affordable as he accused the Conservatives of killing the dream of home ownership.
His comments are an unusual admission from a senior politician that falling house prices could be a good thing, and paint a clear dividing line between the two main parties on planning policy. Starmer said: “Relative to income, I’d like to see [house prices] come down, but the sheer number [of properties] has to go up. “You will have all seen the statistics about how old people on average now need to be to make sure they’re able to own their own home. It’s shocking – it’s shocking because the basic core security of having your own home matters hugely.” He added: “The building of houses is likely to drop down to the lowest level since the second world war. I’d say the dream, the aspiration of owning your own home is going to be killed, and we need to do something about that.” Starmer told business leaders in Westminster that his party would be “the builders, not the blockers” and would encourage councils to approve developments on greenbelt land. The comments have already triggered opposition within his own party, with John McDonnell, the former shadow chancellor, tweeting: “The Green Belt … has been the fundamental basis of a battle to protect the environment in working class urban constituencies like mine over decades.” But Starmer’s officials believe planning and housebuilding are an area where Labour can gain an electoral advantage over the Conservatives. Last year, Michael Gove, the housing secretary, dropped the government’s mandatory target of building 300,000 new homes a year, making it voluntary instead, following complaints by Conservative backbenchers. Starmer also suggested upending the planning system to create housebuilding regions, instead of leaving planning policy solely in the power of individual councils. “I would be open to looking at whether this can be done on a pan-local authority basis, because I think, amongst the problems we’ve got … that this is all very piecemeal, very, very localised. “It would make sense, in my view, to clump together authorities in certain areas of the country so that together they could plan the housing built in the best places,” he added, suggesting that councils along a particular train line could be grouped together. Meanwhile, the Labour leader also clarified that his party would not bring an immediate end to the leasehold system if elected next year. Gove has been criticised in recent days after the Guardian revealed he had rowed back on a previous pledge to abolish all leaseholds, and will instead look to reform the current system to empower leaseholders. Starmer also criticised Gove, but said he would not abolish existing leaseholds either, only promising to do so for new developments. Labour would bring in reforms to make it cheaper for existing leaseholders, he added. Harry Scoffin, the co-founder of the anti-leasehold group Commonhold Now, said: “Promising to end leasehold for future blocks of flats is fantastic. “For existing leaseholders, however, the message couldn’t be clearer: we want leasehold reformed out of existence. We want control over our homes and our money.”