More homes are the key to building a better future for Britain’s next generation
We simply have to build more homes. This is first and foremost an argument about fairness. One day I would like my children to be able to afford to buy their own home. It is only human to want to provide for the next generation.
Unfortunately this dream for so many of us is turning into a nightmare. The average age of a first-time buyer has now risen to above 30 in every region of the country.
More young people are living with their parents for longer, unable to afford to pay rising rental costs let alone save up for a deposit. This makes it harder for businesses to recruit staff, which impacts their career and pay prospects.
At the same time, there are three million people in the UK now aged 65 or over want to downsize but can’t. The stress and cost of moving and the lack of suitable housing is creating a bottleneck of family-sized homes.
It is preventing families from being able to live near to each other. It is contributing to the NHS bill with more people admitted to hospital as a result of a fall.
Building more homes must be a political imperative for the Conservatives.
We know that people who have a mortgage or own their home outright are much more likely to vote for our party than Labour. We are a party that stands for aspiration and capitalism. What is capitalism without capital?
To the credit of Boris Johnson, he grasped the fact that we must “build, build, build”. However, as successive governments have found to their detriment, presenting housing as a numbers game creates more enemies than friends. Local residents recoil. The idea of a faceless Whitehall bureaucrat ordering them to take this number or that number of new homes raises the hackles.
Michael Gove understands this dilemma. With his usual verve and conviction he has set out plans to build beautiful homes. He has given neighbours the chance to veto new development on their streets. This is a policy I wholeheartedly support.
Embracing “Street Votes” will rejuvenate suburban neighbourhoods as run-down houses are replaced by new, beautifully designed Georgian or Victorian-style terraces that reflect our country’s heritage and history.
Rather than Labour’s plan to pave over paradise without giving the inhabitants a say, we need to empower local people to make the decisions that are best for their families and communities.
As a conservative, I am also wholeheartedly committed to protecting the green belt. We simply must control urban sprawl. Instead, we should encourage more developers of different sizes to build on previously contaminated – brownfield – land.
As Prime Minister, I will deliver a brownfield first housing policy, ensuring that the definition of brownfield land is periodically reviewed to ensure that areas are correctly categorised, preventing valuable surplus land from lying empty due to bureaucratic errors.
My government will also consider changing the business rates treatment of undeveloped brownfield sites to incentivise development and penalise developers who hoard land, driving up prices while vacant derelict sites to fall into disrepair.
Labour wants to make this country a grey, unpleasant land. I don’t believe that the way to solving our housing crisis lies in adopting a Stalinist central planning approach which would destroy our heritage and environment.
That’s why I’m running for prime minister: to show that the Conservative Party has a plan to help the younger generation – for whom owning a home is currently about as likely as Jeremy Corbyn singing the national anthem properly.
And for the older generation who are just as supportive of providing the good quality and beautiful homes that we so desperately need.
I have a plan to help the young, for whom owning a home is about as likely as Jeremy Corbyn singing the national anthem properly