One million more will own homes, Labour says
A million more homeowners will be created within five years if Labour wins a third term, Gordon Brown and John Prescott will promise today.
The Chancellor, who took centre stage in Labour's campaign yesterday, will herald what he calls a "further major extension of Britain's home-owning, asset-owning, property-owning democracy".
A big boost for home ownership is regarded as one of Labour's key promises.
But the Highways Agency gave warning yesterday that motorways and trunk roads in the South East would struggle to cope with the huge increase in commuting and that road tolls would have to be introduced to prevent gridlock.
Labour nerves over the economy will be heightened by figures showing the sharpest monthly drop in house prices for a decade. Figures from the Nationwide Building Society reported a 0.6 per cent fall this month -the largest month-on-month drop since June 1995. House prices are still rising by 7.9 per cent a year, but this was the lowest since June 2001. And there was more optimistic data from the Bank of England showing a pick-up in mortgage lending last month.
Mr Brown and the Deputy Prime Minister will announce the transfer of 100 surplus sites formerly owned by the NHS to English Partnerships, the development agency, to build 15,000 houses for first-time buyers.
Government sources say that the plans, revealed as the Cabinet met for probably the last time before the calling of the election, expected on Monday, are just the start of a substantial programme of reclaiming public land for building.
It also emerged that Tony Blair is still looking at ways to spice up the Labour manifesto. Although Mr Blair and Alan Milburn, the party's election co ordinator, have assured the Chancellor that the campaign will be based on the economy and public services, Downing Street wants to emphasise a "foward-looking agenda".
The Times has learnt that a series of eye-catching initiatives is being considered for late inclusion before the manifesto is printed next week.
Talks have been held with Alan Johnson, the Work and Pensions Secretary, over welfare reforms, which could include changing housing benefit rules, so that payments are conditional on claimants exercising more responsibility over their lives.
Such a measure would be controversial with the Labour Left and, perhaps, the Treasury. Downing Street is remaining cautious because it remembers how Mr Blair's unexpected comments about the private provision of public services backfired at the last election.
Other last-minute ideas range from increasing NHS capacity through greater use of the independent health sector and giving parents greater say over children's education and -possibly -the location of new academy schools.
Mr Brown and Mr Prescott will promise pilot schemes for tens of thousands of first-time buyers to be involved in shared-equity schemes involving part ownership of homes with local authorities, housing associations or private companies. They will also announce plans for community regeneration, a 50 per cent increase in social housing, the elimination of rough sleeping and halving of numbers of people in temporary accommodation. The aim is to increase home ownership to 75 per cent, higher than any big industrial nation.
Mr Brown, using language that would have been unthinkable for previous Labour chancellors, will recall Harold Macmillan's vow in the 1950s of a property owning democracy, saying that Britain's future is as a "wealth-owning democracy".
"Homes are not just places to live," he will say. "With more and more people owning their homes, houses are becoming ever more important as assets."
Mr Brown will point out challenges including that the number of households in England will rise to 24 million in 15 years, that supply is failing to meet demand and that first-time buyers are finding it difficult to get on the ladder. There are one million more homeowners than in 1997 and Mr Brown wants that to double by 2010.
The Chancellor was given the run of the airwaves last night on a day trailed as his return to the centre of Labour's campaign. After the Cabinet meeting, Mr Brown gave a series of interviews emphasising that the economy will be at the heart of the manifesto.
The Times, 1st April 2005
