Have you registered to vote yet:
More than three million private renters in England are at risk of losing their vote at the general election by failing to register in time, the new campaign RentersVote estimates. The campaign, led by renter groups ACORN and Generation Rent, estimates that 1.8 million private renters have moved home since the 2016 Referendum and must therefore register again.
Private renters are typically on tenancy agreements of no longer than 12 months and are six times more likely to move in a given year than homeowners. A further 1.6 million private renters who have stayed put are estimated not to have been registered to vote.
Voter registration drives in areas with high numbers of renters where their vote could make the difference on 8 June.
The deadline to register is 11.59pm on Monday, May 22
Thanks to Inside Housing for these summaries of election promises by the 3 main parties:
The key housing pledges in the Conservative manifesto
- New homes: build 500,000 new homes between 2020 and 2022, on top of the existing pledge to build 1m by 2020
- Councils: help for councils to build, “but only those councils who will build high-quality, sustainable and integrated communities”
- Public land: repeat of the 2015 pledge to build 160,000 homes on government land (and new plans to compulsory purchase land)
- Homelessness: halve rough sleeping in next parliament and eliminate it by 2027 with a new “homelessness reduction taskforce” and a Housing First pilot
- Right to Buy extension: no mention of the Right to Buy extension for housing associations, or the sell-off of council homes to pay for it
- Welfare: “no plans for further radical welfare reform” and a pledge to continue the roll-out of Universal Credit
The key housing pledges in the Labour manifesto:
- Invest to build more than one million new homes
- Pledge to be building “at least 100,000 council and housing association homes a year for genuinely affordable rent or sale” by 2022
- Establish a new “Department of Housing” tasked with improving the “number, standards and affordability of homes”
- Overhaul the Homes and Communities Agency and give new powers to councils to “build the homes local communities need”
- Prioritise building on brownfield sites
- Protect the green belt
- Start work on a new generation of new towns
- Make housebuilding a priority through a new “national transformation fund” as part of a joined-up industrial and skills strategy
- Scrap the bedroom tax
- Suspend the Right to Buy unless councils can prove they have a plan to replace homes on a like-for-like basis
- Insulate more homes
- Consult on new minimum space standards and on standards for zero carbon homes
- Ensure that Local Plans “address the need for older people’s housing”, ensuring downsizing options are available
- Keep the Land Registry in public hands
- Guarantee Help to Buy funding until 2027
- Give local people buying their first home “first dibs” on new homes built in their area
- Give leaseholders “security from rip-off ground rents” and end the routine use of leasehold houses in new developments
- Make three-year tenancies the norm, with rent rises capped in line with inflation
- Legislate to ban letting agency fees
- Give renters new consumer rights
- Introduce new standards to ensure properties are “fit for human habitation”
- Reverse the decision to abolish housing benefit for 18 to 21-year-olds
- Make 4,000 extra homes available for people with a history of rough sleeping
- Safeguard homelessness hostels and supported housing from cuts to housing benefit
- “Reform and redesign” Universal Credit
The key housing pledges in the Lib-Dem manifesto: