The opposition leader, Keir Starmer, has rightly put solving the housing crisis at the top of his agenda, promising Labour will be “the builders, not the blockers”, pledging to construct new towns and to match the Tories’ target of 300,000 new homes a year.
His work will certainly be cut out for him. If Labour wins the election, it will inherit a country running on fumes. Britain’s broken housing system is expensive and insecure; a creeping social and economic catastrophe pushing people into poverty and homelessness. Many Britons now shell out about half their post-tax income on rent while more than 1.2 million families are stranded on housing waiting lists, sometimes for decades. English homes are on average now not just the smallest, but in the worst condition, and among the least affordable in Europe.
