As the election campaign continues, housing has become a key battleground between Labour and the Conservatives. The Conservatives are focusing on stamp duty, pledging to permanently abolish the levy for first-time buyers buying properties up to £425,000. They claim that by not matching their plan, first-time buyers under Labour would face a tax bill of up to £11,250. Conversely, Labour is targeting rental homes, with ambitious plans for energy efficiency in order to protect tenants from higher energy bills.
According to the BBC’s Your Voice, Your Vote, housing is the most important issue for many voters during this election. The threshold at which first-time buyers start paying stamp duty is currently temporarily raised from £300,000 to £425,000 until April 2020. The Conservatives are pledging to keep the threshold at that level permanently. Housing Secretary Michael Gove accused Labour of “hammering hundreds of thousands of first-time buyers with a massive stamp duty increase from next April”.
Labour, on the other hand, has said that if elected, they would require all landlords to bring rental homes up to Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating C by 2030, which would save the average tenant £250 per year and protect renters more effectively than the Conservative proposal. Labour is also pledging swift action to protect renters, saying it would immediately ban no-fault evictions.
The Liberal Democrats are calling for additional social housing and new “garden cities”. They support local authorities that want to end the “right to buy” policy for council housing, ban no-fault evictions, make three-year tenancies the default, and create a national register of licensed landlords. The Green Party would invest in new social housing, set higher environmental standards for new builds, and require more affordable units. They also support rent controls and an eviction ban.
It remains to be seen which party will be successful in addressing the housing crisis in the UK, with each proposing different solutions. However, it seems clear that voters are prioritising this issue, putting pressure on politicians to deliver meaningful change
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