Time for action

Tackling the housing crisis that continues to envelope our communities has become one of the most pressing issues of our time.

For ‘generation rent’ who face living in insecure homes and working insecure jobs, families forced into B&Bs, adults trapped living in their childhood bedrooms, young people being denied housing benefit, millions living in homes not fit for habitation and the growing numbers of homeless people on our streets.

“The time for action on this issue is long past,” said Jayne Taylor, Unite representative.

The Labour party’s manifesto is committed to increasing council house building – recognition that council housing has a crucial role to play in ensuring that everyone has a home that is affordable, warm, and secure and where you can build a life and a family but also that councils need to be able to suspend the right to buy.

“Directly investing in housing makes social policy sense and economic sense,” said Taylor.

“Housing is one of the clearest examples of the Tory’s recklessness and narrow mindedness that prizes the commitment to the market above all else,” she added.

Housing is a central driver of economic growth and through public investment we can ensure it is an investment that creates good jobs and apprenticeships as well as homes for all.

“The new housing consensus that we want to forge must reverse the trend in privatisation, marketization and deregulation that has scarred the provision and quality of one of the most basic human needs,” said Taylor.

The fragmentation and casualization of the construction industry denies workers their employment rights and has contributed to the massive decline in apprenticeship numbers.

“Conference, as a movement we have changed the terms of debate on housing. Now we need to push forward and ensure that action is taken to end the housing crisis,” added Taylor.